Chalkbeat

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Creating community but also pushing for change

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

What Philadelphia public schools could get in new city budget

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“Enough is enough,” Parker said.

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

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

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

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

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

What the budget leaves out

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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.

Thousands of Philadelphia students are owed special education services from the pandemic

2024-03-07T23:26:49+00:00

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The Philadelphia school district has fallen way behind schedule in providing thousands of students in special education with extra services they did not receive during the pandemic, according to state officials.

The Pennsylvania Department of Education first directed the district to provide compensatory services to students in June after receiving a complaint from the Education Law Center on behalf of families.

According to the complaint, some parents and guardians were still unaware their children were entitled to extra help more than a year after students returned to in-person instruction. Families and advocates fear that many of these students may have suffered lasting damage.

“These are students who were most harmed by 15 to 18 months out of school,” said Margie Wakelin, senior attorney at the law center.

Wakelin said students didn’t receive the math tutoring, speech therapy, intensive phonics instruction, emotional support services, or other interventions that their education plans require.

In a review dated February 23 responding to the complaint, state officials found that the district has for the most part identified the students who need to be evaluated for compensatory services, but likely made decisions about what they were entitled to without properly consulting parents as required.

After analyzing 50 randomly chosen cases from four elementary schools in one of the district’s 16 learning networks, the state found only four in which the required meetings with families had occurred – yet the district made eligibility determinations in 44 of the cases.

“Not everybody is necessarily eligible, but meetings are supposed to happen to determine whether they are entitled to services,” Wakelin said.

The state ordered the district to submit evidence by April 5 that they have followed all the requirements for determining need and are providing appropriate services.

District says they face shortage of special education teachers

The closure of in-person school between March 2020 and September 2021 most severely affected students with disabilities who have either individualized education plans or 504 plans, according to the law center’s complaint. Individualized education plans, which are created by a team of school officials and parents, spell out services to which students are entitled, while 504 plans guarantee accommodations for students with conditions that could interfere with their learning.

The complaint relied on guidance from the U.S. Department of Education’s Office of Civil Rights on what districts must do to ensure that all children, regardless of disability, receive a “free and appropriate public education.”

The district received about $528 million in federal COVID relief funding, which was meant to help address learning loss, but budget materials for this fiscal year don’t mention compensatory services as a priority. District officials did estimate in one undated request for proposal that they would need to provide services to as many as 40% of the roughly 22,000 students with disabilities who were eligible. They expected to provide the services between January 2022 and June 2024.

In a statement issued Wednesday, district officials said that they are “working to remediate educational learning loss” from the pandemic, despite a “national shortage of qualified special education teachers and related service providers.” The district opened the school year with 200 teacher vacancies.

The statement also noted that Nathalie Nérée, who has experience in several other large districts including Chicago and Broward County, Florida, became chief of special education and diverse learners at the beginning of this school year.

Under her leadership, the district “is looking forward to building transparent, collaborative and positive relationships with our families, community partners and advocacy groups as we reimagine special education for students in Philadelphia.”

Families have found it difficult to get services

Many families in the school district have found the process to get compensatory services frustrating and have sought help from the Education Law Center.

Yolanda Workman said she and her daughter met with school officials in January on Zoom to discuss services for her grandson, a fifth grader at Emlen Elementary School in Mount Airy who has been diagnosed with a learning disability. The school’s special education liaison didn’t give them much of a chance to speak, she said, and then told them that the child was not entitled to extra services. The liaison also urged them to sign a legal document confirming that.

Workman said they refused to sign and told the liaison they planned to contact an attorney. A few weeks later, they received notice that her grandson was entitled to 75 hours of compensatory services.

But neither Workman nor her daughter could say whether he was receiving the services, or what form they were taking.

Colleen Gibbons-Brown, a special education teacher for ninth and 10th graders at Strawberry Mansion High School, said that she has not seen much evidence that students are getting extra services, or that parents and caregivers have been consulted about what students need and how best to provide it.

“From what I have seen, decisions are not made as a team, but by network case managers and some administrators,” she said. “They are making a call, then informing the parents, [thus] removing parents, teachers and even students from that decision.”

At her school, she said the process for deciding whether a student qualified for extra services was hasty and flawed. For instance, invitation letters for parents to meetings about their child were generated the same day that some of the meetings were scheduled. “I’m listed as being part of the team, and I know I wasn’t attending the meetings,” she said.

One of Gibbons-Brown’s colleagues, who is also the mother of a student with disabilities, said she had no idea that compensatory services were available, even though she works in the district. The child, now 10, had not learned to read and exhibited serious behavioral issues that were exacerbated during the pandemic.

“I never heard about compensatory services,” said the teacher, who asked not to be identified to protect her child’s privacy.

She contacted a lawyer, who helped her enroll her child in an approved private school, a common alternative for students whose education plans cannot be fulfilled within the district.

Wakelin said that the law center’s goal is to compel district officials to focus on alternatives to private services, which are expensive and tend to favor parents who are savvy in navigating the system.

Meeting this mandate also falls disproportionately on some public schools. For instance, at Strawberry Mansion, a neighborhood school in impoverished North Philadelphia, 43% of its 250 students are classified as needing special education. The citywide figure is 19%.

Determining services for students is complex

Calculating what is owed to each student and then providing services is a daunting task, Gibbons-Brown said. Still, she said her school’s process didn’t consider what progress students might have made if not for the pandemic’s disruption.

If a student had not regressed beyond what they had scored pre-COVID, it was decided they didn’t need services, she said. But that doesn’t take into account any progress they should have made since.

“Analyzing the impact of COVID is more nuanced than that quick comparison,” she said. “I have students, based on one data point now and for 2019, that may look like there is no regression. Maybe not, but their progress has stalled.”

Wakelin said the process is “now in the do-over period and we’re trying to get the word out to families so they know that their children have this right.”

As complex as the task is, “it’s not like there aren’t other large urban districts that have grappled with this and come up with solutions compliant with the law,” she said.

Wakelin said the district still has not taken basic steps to reach families, saying “there’s nothing on the website, no fact sheets for parents, and minimal information provided to teachers.

“We want kids to get services, not just a ruling that this child is eligible for 50 hours they are not able to use.”

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 teachers protest punishments for taking non-consecutive sick days

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Any more absences could lead to suspension or termination.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Superintendent Tony Watlington declined to comment on the program.

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

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

Betting on a school turnaround model

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

In 2011, Ackerman resigned.

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

After that, Renaissance conversions ceased.

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

How Renaissance schools measure up

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“This stuff takes time,” he said.

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

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

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

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

Renaissance supporters say look beyond test scores

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

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

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

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

‘We needed a turnaround in a turnaround’

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Keene said the school functioned well under Universal at first.

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

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

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

And her ideas for reform are still present today.

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

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

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

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

Philadelphia Mayor Parker names chief education officer and deputy

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

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

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

Debora Carrera, Philadelphia's new chief education officer.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

‘The transformation of Pennsylvania’s school funding system’

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Other education highlights of Shapiro’s budget include:

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

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

Philadelphia tax break program fails to deliver hoped-for benefits to students

2024-02-01T11:00:00+00:00

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Every so often, Philadelphia’s school board members have to decide whether to grant huge tax breaks to property developers through a program that, on the whole, siphons money away from the city and the district they govern.

These tax breaks are a lynchpin of Keystone Opportunity Zones, a 25-year-old state program that officials say spurs development on abandoned or underutilized land by waiving nearly all state and local taxes, including business and property taxes, in the zones for up to 10 years. Pennsylvania says the program is a strong economic development strategy.

But by the district’s own estimate, the zones have cost Philadelphia public schools $59.9 million since 2017. The district lost out on $7.7 million in 2022, an amount that could have funded 61 librarians for one year, based on the district’s average salary and benefits equaling $126,000 for the 2021-22 school year, for example. Since 2017, developers receiving new zones or extensions for previously approved zones are required to provide alternative revenue to the district to help offset that impact. Yet nearly three-quarters of the zones still don’t even generate that revenue stream, according to city records.

And when the board had the chance to halt five of the zones last year, it approved them instead.

The program highlights the school system’s place in the city’s political and financial ecosystem. And its trade-offs have become the subject of intense debate. The Philadelphia school district relies heavily on city property tax revenue for its $3.9 billion budget. It has no independent taxing power and is getting just over $1 billion in city property taxes this fiscal year. The district’s projected $407 million budget deficit next year only underscores disputes about the zones.

But criticism of the zones goes beyond their tax impact. Keystone Opportunity Zone (KOZ) developers are now “strongly encouraged” (according to a statement from the city’s Department of Commerce) to offer work and related opportunities for students enrolled in the district’s career and technical education programs. Yet only three developers have actually provided these opportunities, and information about them is not easily accessible. More developers could be offering life-changing opportunities to hundreds if not thousands of students, but aren’t.

Overall, records provided about the program appear to leave out critical details, and it’s not clear which businesses are or should be making required payments designed to serve as an alternative to regular tax burdens. Critics have alleged the overall program lacks transparency and accountability, and that it’s expanded unnecessarily to already rapidly developing neighborhoods like Fishtown and University City.

“Can they afford the tax break? I don’t think they can. I think there’s no way this school district should be writing off anybody’s taxes,” said Donna Cooper, executive director of the advocacy group Children First, referring to the board. “They don’t have the money.” She added that the district should be more focused on whether the setup is benefitting students.

This is the Pennsylvania tax break that keeps causing controversy on Philadelphia’s school board

The tension surrounding Keystone Opportunity Zones was on display during an August school board meeting, when board members voted on whether to grant 10-year extensions of the tax abatements to five developers.

Some board members said they didn’t understand why the tax breaks were still needed — and why, in some cases, properties remained undeveloped even after developers had held onto the land for more than a decade.

“I’m trying to reconcile that in my brain,” Board Vice President Mallory Fix-Lopez said.

The five developers in question were Enterprise Center, Stateside Vodka, Longfellow Real Estate Partners, Wexford Development, and Arsenal. Arsenal has had a Keystone Opportunity Zone in Tacony since 2004, yet is still trying to develop 12 buildings.

Arsenal has had a Keystone Opportunity Zone in Tacony since 2004, yet is still trying to develop 12 buildings.

Present at the meeting and answering the board’s many questions were not the developers, but Philadelphia Department of Commerce leaders. When Fix-Lopez asked for data about the career-related learning opportunities developers have said they’ll provide for students, the officials responded with details from one developer, Hilco, which was not requesting an extension. The officials did not provide comprehensive information about the others.

Board member Cecilia Thompson said she wanted more time to review the developers’ letters of intent, “because it’s almost as if we are voting blind.”

Despite these and other questions and concerns, the board voted to approve four of the five extensions at the August meeting. Only Arsenal’s extension didn’t get the thumbs-up. Then, in September, the board pivoted and voted to extend the tax break for Arsenal after all.

In an interview with Chalkbeat, board member Lisa Salley said she changed her vote in support of Arsenal after visiting the construction site.

“What we were able to see is the level of complication and the layers of government at the federal level and at the city level, the level of relationships involved with making any decision to develop it,” Salley said.

Salley would not comment on her other votes in favor of the KOZ extensions. Board Vice President Fix-Lopez declined to comment on her decision. No other board members responded to Chalkbeat’s repeated requests for comment about their votes.

The City Council unanimously approved four of the five KOZ extensions last June, a few months before the school board did so.

Councilmember Jamie Gauthier said she supported Enterprise’s tax abatements because of the developer’s mission (Enterprise is a nonprofit).

“We just have to be very clear before we give up revenue that the city needs, that there’s a concurrent benefit that’s going to come, particularly for Black and brown working class people who are at risk of displacement in our communities,” Gauthier said.

But Jeff Hornstein, executive director of the Economy League, who worked on a 2014 report on Keystone Opportunity Zones’ tax impact for the city controller’s office, said that between the city and the school district, “The school district is the biggest loser, at least in the short run.”

Workaround for school district revenue falls short

A state law enacted in 2008 allows the city to require developers using Keystone Opportunity Zones to make payments in lieu of taxes, sometimes known as PILOTs.

The school district receives 55% of these payments. The total payment amount is 10% more than what the real estate taxes would have originally been for each property, and are based on the city’s most recent property assessment.

But even with the PILOT payments, the zones ultimately lead to less funding for the district than regular taxes.

Property owners now sign a contract with the city to pay PILOTs when they are granted the tax abatements. The district received $1.2 million in such payments from developers and property owners in 2023, markedly less (for example) than the $7.7 million the district didn’t collect in revenue due to KOZ tax breaks from the previous year.

And crucially, not all developers who benefit from Keystone Opportunity Zones actually generate those payments. That’s partly because only developers approved for them since 2017, or developers who have been granted extensions by the district since then, are required by the commerce department to make those payments.

Out of 287 properties with KOZ tax abatements in 2023, businesses made payments in lieu of taxes on just 81 of them, according to district records provided to Chalkbeat.

For instance, Urban Outfitters doesn’t make such payments for its three properties on Kittyhawk Avenue, or its property on Flagship Drive. Brandywine Realty Trust doesn’t make these payments on FMC Tower, a prominent development on Walnut Street.

And not all property owners with established PILOT agreements — according to city records — made those payments in 2023. East Capital Partners (which is developing Stateside Vodka’s new warehouse), and Commercial Development Co., the developer of a contested UPS warehouse in the Northeast, did not make their payments to the district in 2023, according to the district.

Neither company responded to Chalkbeat’s multiple requests for comment.

In an interview with Chalkbeat, City Councilmember Kendra Brooks said there needs to be better “collective planning” related to the Keystone Opportunity Zones.

“We can’t continue to create systems that aren’t monitored and we don’t have accountability,” Brooks said. “And the outcome is that our school district is suffering.”

From left: 3800-14 Market St. and 3400 Market St. Both properties are receiving Keystone Opportunity Zone tax abatements.

Information on developers’ help for students is sparse

Perhaps the most direct connection between these opportunity zones and Philadelphia’s students is the chance for students to learn career and technical skills that are provided by some developers — at least in theory.

In December 2018, the City Council passed a bill requiring Keystone Opportunity Zone applicants to include plans to offer apprenticeships, internships, and other work opportunities for students enrolled in the district’s career and technical education programs. These plans are known as Opportunity Plans or — as the district calls them — Career Connected Learning Plans.

But the commerce department said that bill isn’t enforceable because it’s a state-run program, and it’s not a state requirement for developers to offer students such opportunities.

The city is “pretty limited” in how it can change Keystone Opportunity Zone rules for developers “unless there’s a provision in the state law that allows for it,” said Marc Stier, executive director of the Pennsylvania Policy Center. (The 2008 amendment to state law allowing the city to require PILOT payments is one such change.)

Since 2020, 50 developers, according to the commerce department, have been granted zones or extensions on their zones. Yet just three of those developers have devised and implemented these Career Connected Learning Plans, according to the district: Hilco ReDevelopment Partners, Brandywine Realty Trusts, and Cescaphe of Battery Park. And even those three developers have not fulfilled these plans to the extent they’ve said they will.

The commerce department says the plans have “engaged thousands of students” since 2020, yet neither the school district nor the commerce department shared detailed information about the plans. They are not available online or easily accessible to the public.

The district said Hilco and Brandywine have enacted 95% of their promises, while Cescaphe has 50% of its plans in place. When asked for further details, the district directed Chalkbeat to the commerce department. The city did not share what the percentages mean.

In 2020, Hilco, which bought the former Philadelphia Energy Solutions refinery, revealed ambitious plans for providing career pathways to students. The commerce department said Hilco “engaged over 1,300 students” in the 2022-23 school year. But when Chalkbeat asked for details about what the developer provided, the city only cited general information, listing “career fairs, job shadowing, internships, informational interviews and site tours.”

According to the commerce department, Brandywine created a six-week program for Dobbins High School BioTech students to meet with industry professionals, receive mentoring, and go on site tours. Cescaphe donated food to school district events and has been working with Ben Franklin High School’s culinary program to give site tours and develop ongoing programming.

At the August school board meeting, the commerce department presented five new career learning plans with developers’ Keystone Opportunity Zone extension requests. But in December, the district said none of those plans had been implemented yet.

Fix-Lopez, the board’s vice president, zeroed in on the Enterprise Center’s estimate that it would engage with 30 students annually, including 20 who’d get access to career fairs. “That’s one kindergarten classroom, for example,” she said. “In a city of 1.5 million with 200,000 students, how did we come up with 20?”

Cooper, of Children’s First, criticized the commerce department’s failure to truly define what it means for developers to have “engaged” with students.

“Let’s say they do internships — what does that mean? How many hours? What are they learning?”

The office wants to make “quality experiences for students, versus quantity,” said Gianna Grossman, the commerce department’s senior director of workforce development.

The city cannot revoke a Keystone Opportunity Zone designation if a developer doesn’t follow through on plans for students or PILOT payments.

“We are completely within our right to recommend to the state that they not renew,” Commerce Department Director Anne Nadol said in December (Nadol has since left that position).

But the city has not made such a recommendation in the last 10 years, according to the Pennsylvania Department of Community and Economic Development, the agency that runs Keystone Opportunity Zones. Not paying PILOTs or following through on pledges to provide career opportunities to students is also not grounds for denying applications for the zones, the department said.

A Pennsylvania law allows the city to require developers using Keystone Opportunity Zones to make payments in lieu of taxes. But even with those payments, the zones ultimately lead to less funding for the district than regular taxes.

Advocates ask for more on transparency, student promises

Nelida Sepulveda, an advocate for effective workforce and public education reform policies and staffer with Children First, said wants to see public reporting on the effectiveness of the Career Connected Learning Plans.

“If they have a data collection process and reporting structure, they should make it known so that the public can access it and use it as a tool to either promote these types of initiatives or hold stakeholders accountable for poor performance or lack of follow through — since after all, these are public resources that are being utilized,” Sepulveda said.

Then there are concerns about a lack of transparency for decisions like the board’s August and September votes.

“When you post an item that nobody can understand and then you flip your vote and give either no explanation or an incoherent explanation, you’re not telling people what your priorities are and why you’re doing what you’re doing,” said Lisa Haver, cofounder of the education advocacy group Alliance for Philadelphia Public Schools.

Children First’s Cooper described the developers’ plans as overall “extremely modest” in relation to the benefit of the tax abatement. More questions should be asked about whether they are providing a sufficient return for students, she said.

“People really underdeveloped those plans. They didn’t demonstrate any significant commitment ... that’s a tragedy,” Cooper said.

Correction, Feb. 1, 2024: Due to inaccurate records from the city commerce department, this article has been updated to reflect that since 2020, 50 developers have been granted zones or extensions on their zones. A previous version of the article said at least 17 developers had been granted zones or extensions based on city records.

Pennsylvania’s budget impasse ends, but ‘Level Up’ funding gets left behind

2023-12-14T17:28:42+00:00

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HARRISBURG — Pennsylvania’s budget impasse ended Wednesday after the divided state legislature agreed to send millions of dollars to community colleges and libraries, fund public legal defense, and create a student teacher stipend.

Three budget-enabling code bills, plus dozens of other pieces of legislation, passed with broad bipartisan support during a swirl of late-night votes and were sent to Gov. Josh Shapiro’s desk.

The flurry of action marked a sudden end to five-and-a-half months of deadlock that divided the Democratic-controlled state House and the Republican-controlled state Senate and ground the gears of government to a halt.

The budget bills create a handful of new programs, many of which had been prioritized by state House Democrats, including ones that would more than triple the size of Pennsylvania’s child care tax credit and add preventative dental care to the state’s Medicaid program.

“We are collectively showing that we can move past the partisan politics, have real conversations and get a lot done for the good people of Pennsylvania,” Shapiro, a Democrat, said Wednesday night shortly before signing the bills.

Negotiations over these parts of the budget broke down this summer after Shapiro agreed to veto $100 million for private school vouchers favored by Republicans in order to win support from state House Democrats for the main budget bill.

At the time, the Shapiro administration said it would hold off on spending about $1.1 billion until it received additional authorization from the legislature.

This week’s deal leaves out some high-profile programs lawmakers had initially agreed to in their summer agreement, which had been caught in the spending delay.

Most prominently, the popular Whole-Home Repairs Program — which provides grants to property owners who need to fund expensive maintenance projects like fixing leaky roofs — was not given the $50 million lawmakers agreed to spend earlier this year.

Other programs caught in the code bill delay — such as the stipends, indigent defense funding, and state allocations to community colleges and libraries — ultimately received funding, though the delay caused hardships. Some nonprofits that benefit from the PA Workwear program and provide clothing to Temporary Assistance for Needy Families recipients had to lay off staff while they waited for the code fight to resolve.

Wednesday’s deal marks the conclusion of months of talks, a resolution that lawmakers in both major parties celebrated.

State House Speaker Joanna McClinton (D., Philadelphia) said she is grateful the budget is finished and looks forward to the next one, “because the good news is we’re just getting started.”

The programs that didn’t make it into the final deal, like Whole-Home Repairs, were often casualties of last-minute horse-trading rather than concerted opposition.

Despite being swamped with demand since it was created last year using federal stimulus dollars, funding for Whole-Home Repairs will “lapse” until lawmakers return to the budget negotiating table next year, state Senate Majority Leader Joe Pittman (R., Indiana) told reporters Wednesday night.

It could make a comeback then. State Sen. David Argall (R., Schuylkill), who helped champion the proposal last year, said he supports the repair grants and is looking ahead to next year’s budget talks to restore funding.

“It just got lost in the shuffle with all of the other competing programs,” Argall told Spotlight PA.

The final deal also does not route $100 million in additional state aid to Pennsylvania’s poorest school districts, a program known as “Level Up.” Instead, the legislature reallocated those dollars to a state board to fund school construction projects. Another $75 million was allocated to remove lead, asbestos, and other toxins from schools.

State Rep. Pete Schweyer (D., Lehigh) said in a statement that the $175 million marks “the first time in nearly a decade” that “funding passed by the House will give school districts the necessary resources to make the building upgrades.”

Supporters of alternatives to public schools also got a win, as the final education code added $150 million to two related state tax credits for businesses that fund private school scholarships. But for the first time, schools will be required to report data on scholarship recipients’ grade level, disability status, and original public school district, among other data points.

Some of the new proposals that made it into the final code deal were unexpected.

One of the biggest changes, which emerged publicly late in lawmakers’ talks, was the expansion of the state tax credit created last year that allows parents to deduct child care costs from their state taxable income.

The current state credit is capped at 30% of the value of the federal credit, which means it can give caregivers a maximum of $315 annually for a single dependent under 13 or $630 for two or more children, depending on income level.

Under the new law, parents can receive a refundable tax credit equal to their federal child care deduction starting in 2024. That amount can be up to $1,050 for one dependent under 13 and $2,100 for two or more, depending on income.

Child care costs vary by location and the child’s age, but according to federal Department of Labor data, amounts can range from $6,000 to $14,000 a year for Pennsylvania families.

The deal also restarts dental care for hundreds of thousands of Pennsylvanians receiving medical assistance. These benefits had been stripped down to only medically necessary care for adults, such as exams, X-rays, and tooth extractions, but usually excluded other surgeries like root canals.

“As the saying goes, when you smile, the whole world smiles back at you,” state Rep. Valerie Gaydos (R., Allegheny) said on the state House floor Tuesday, when the chamber passed a standalone proposal to reintroduce dental care.

The deal also increases a surcharge on phone bills to pay for 911 dispatching infrastructure. The fee will increase by 30 cents in 2024 to $1.95 before it disappears in 2026.

The County Commissioners Association of Pennsylvania called the increase “far short of properly funding” the service.

One last budget item remains unfinished. A bill that would give $31.6 million to the University of Pennsylvania’s veterinary school, the commonwealth’s only such school, fell 12 votes short of the two-thirds vote needed to approve the allocation.

The bill was sunk by GOP opposition, which state House Minority Leader Bryan Cutler (R., Lancaster) attributed to the school’s recent controversy. The university’s former president, Liz Magill, resigned after testifying before Congress regarding antisemitism on college campuses. Members of Congress and alumni called for Magill’s resignation after she defended allowing genocidal language on campus, saying that such language was allowed as free speech.

“Our institutions of higher education have become an unfortunate home for hate,” Cutler said.

Other unfinished business may have to wait until next year.

For instance, the final package did not contain a boost to state public transit funding through a sales tax transfer, a measure backed by both Democrats and Republicans. SEPTA had pushed for such a measure throughout the fall to avoid reducing service, citing dwindling federal stimulus dollars and low ridership.

“We have the ability to keep advocating for this transit system,” state Rep. Morgan Cephas (D., Philadelphia) and chair of the city’s delegation told Spotlight PA. “And that’s something that we’ll be focusing on in the next fiscal cycle.”

Spotlight PA’s Kate Huangpu contributed reporting.

Correction: This story has been updated to reflect that Pennsylvania’s current child care tax credit is worth 30% of the federal credit, and that the just-passed budget code will increase its value to match 100% of that federal credit, for a maximum value of $2,100 annually.

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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.

In reversal, Philly school board votes to renew charter school amid shifting political climate

2024-01-26T03:14:10+00:00

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In a rare move, the Philadelphia Board of Education voted Thursday to reverse its previous decision not to renew a charter school, meaning it can continue operating for another three years — with 19 separate conditions.

By a unanimous vote, the board passed a settlement agreement that renewed until 2027 the charter of Southwest Leadership Academy, a K-8 school with nearly 600 students that had been having academic, operational, and financial problems, according to the board’s Charter Schools Office.

“I expect the school to make progress over the course of the charter term and build on the recent increases in academic achievement we have seen through the most recent data from the 2022-2023 school year,” said Board President Reginald Streater.

Streater noted that the Charter Schools Office recommended that the board vote to extend the school’s charter, although he also said he remained concerned “about the school’s current financial position.”

After the vote, the school’s CEO Leigh Purnell and Principal Christina Green hugged in relief.

Last June, citing operational, financial, and academic problems, the board voted 7-2 not to renew Southwest Leadership Academy’s charter, putting the school’s future in jeopardy. It has continued to educate nearly 600 students as the school’s appeal of the board’s decision has played out.

The board’s latest decision comes amid heightened pressure from lawmakers and advocates who have claimed Black-led charter schools, like Southwest Leadership Academy, face systemic racial bias in the city. An independent report released in October found no “intentional bias” from district leaders against those schools. But it called the rate of closure of Black-led charter schools “concerning” and said a problematic authorizing and evaluation process could lead to the perception of bias.

The decision also hints at a change in the political climate for charter schools under new Mayor Cherelle Parker, who during her campaign repeatedly said she would not tolerate competition between district and charter schools.

“I will not allow anyone to act as if district-run and charter schools are warring factions,” she told Chalkbeat in an interview.

The board hasn’t approved a new charter school since 2018.

Though they don’t outright control it, the mayor and city council hold a lot of sway over the school district. Parker has the ability to appoint all nine members of the school board; that process is set to begin soon. The city also controls local funding for schools since the school board has no independent taxing power.

On Thursday, Peng Chao, the director of the Charter Schools Office, told board members that the school’s trustees and academic team were working hard to straighten out its problems, and said his office would continue to help. He noted that six years ago, Southwest Leadership Academy was one of the highest-performing charters in Philadelphia.

Before the vote, several students urged the board to keep the school open.

“I would not be who I am today” without the education and guidance she got at Southwest Leadership Academy, said Renee Fernandes, who is now a senior at William Penn Charter, a private Quaker high school “I never saw a private school in my future, but SLA made it happen.”

Purnell and other speakers pointed out that the school is a haven for many students from the African diaspora in Philadelphia. Southwest Leadership Academy “is the very first school where I’ve been able to culturally connect with students,” said Arun Arungodade, who said she was a member of that diaspora.

Shirleen Thomas-Moore, who described herself as “guardian and auntie” to a fourth and fifth grader at Southwest Leadership Academy, said they both learned to read in kindergarten. “I am pleased with the education there,” she said.

In advance of the vote, Purnell thanked the board for letting the school continue. In an interview after the vote, she said, “Our proficiency scores are not where we want them to be, however we are able to achieve tremendous growth with our students.”

Charter renewal includes conditions for academics, financial controls

The board identified several serious concerns about Southwest Leadership Academy before members voted last year not to renew its charter.

A 2022 evaluation by the board’s Charter School Office found that the school didn’t meet standards for academics, organizational compliance and viability, or financial health. The evaluation also found numerous problems with enrollment procedures and employee background checks.

A month after the board’s June 2023 vote not to renew the school’s charter, Southwest appealed the board’s ruling to the state Charter Appeals Board. Critics of the board’s move at the time included Councilmember Isaiah Thomas, who chairs City Council’s education committee.

The resolution approved by the board on Thursday offers a conditional five-year renewal of the charter. It is retroactive to 2022, so will expire in 2027. With the settlement, the state appeal is rendered moot.

The renewal agreement includes requirements for academic improvement, but the targets include more flexible options if the school can’t meet the most stringent stipulations.

The conditions say that ideally, math, language arts, and science test scores improve enough to be “no more than 5 points below the district average,” or the average for comparable schools based on grade span and demographics.

If the school doesn’t meet that standard, it will be renewed by the board if it meets average growth benchmarks set by the state, or if it achieves “an annual increase in the proficiency rate” in each subject, “year over year.”

According to state data, 24% of students scored proficient or advanced in English Language Arts on the Pennsylvania state test in 2022-23, up from 19% the year before. In math, 10.1% of students scored proficient or advanced, up from 5 % in 2021-22. Its science scores are somewhat better.

The resolution also said that the school must stop its “gender based lottery” process for admitting its students. The school has separate boys’ and girls’ classrooms.

Southwest Leadership Academy must also prove that all teachers and aides dealing with special education students have the proper certification. The school must also hire a consultant to help recruit and onboard new board members and assure that they are properly trained in “financial oversight and governance.” It also specifies that all board members submit all required financial documents to guard against any potential conflicts of interest.

Additionally, the school is under a tight deadline to submit a “financial and internal controls plan” by Jan. 31.

Lisa Haver of the Alliance for Philadelphia Public Schools asked the board for more transparency and consistency in the charter authorization and renewal process.

In 2018, shortly after the city regained control of the district from the state, the newly installed Board of Education reversed the decision of the School Reform Commission to close Richard Allen Charter School for poor performance. Instead, the board gave it a renewal with many conditions. The school is still operating.

Larry Jones, the founder of Richard Allen, is a leader of the African American Charter School Coalition.

At Thursday’s meeting, representatives of the African American Charter School Coalition urged the board to impose a moratorium on closing any charters until the renewal and evaluation process is fixed.

In 2022, the board issued a notice of nonrenewal to Laboratory Charter School, which also has Black leadership, but several months later reversed itself and renewed the charter for five years.

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.

Sign up for Chalkbeat’s monthly text updates on the Philadelphia Board of Education

2024-01-23T14:57:46+00:00

Want to stay up to date on the latest news from the Philadelphia Board of Education and be able to text all your school board questions to Chalkbeat’s journalists? Sign up for Chalkbeat Philadelphia’s free texting service.

Our bureau sifts through agendas and documents, attends board meetings, and interviews Philly leaders, educators, and community members before and after the meetings. We report the important school board votes and decisions and tell the stories of the people affected by those decisions.

And with our texting service, you’ll always stay in the loop on the latest Philadelphia school board news.

This is one more way our team works to keep you informed, spark conversation, and inspire you to take action. Our team wants to hold district officials accountable for doing right by their students while also sharing what’s important to students, parents, and teachers.

Here’s how it works:

Sign up by texting SCHOOL to 215-709-9650 or enter your phone number into the box below.

Once you sign up, you’ll get a reminder text before each meeting plus a text after the meeting with the relevant news, and an occasional text when there is additional school board news.

Plus, the texts are a direct line to our journalists. If you have questions you don’t see the answers to, you can text back and ask us.

The Philadelphia school board typically meets the last Thursday of every month at 440 N. Broad Street, Philadelphia, 19130. You can learn more about the board, view its meeting schedule, and learn about public comment here.

Caroline Bauman is the deputy managing editor of engagement at Chalkbeat. Reach her at cbauman@chalkbeat.org.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

‘A persistent voice for the needs of teachers’

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

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

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

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

Jordan declined to comment.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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.

Philadelphia shrugs off national controversy as it updates and reinvigorates Black history lessons

2023-02-27T19:27:42+00:00

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In 2005, Philadelphia became the first big city in America to require all students to take African American history in order to graduate. And as other states and districts pass laws and adopt policies that restrict teaching about race and racism, the city’s public schools are taking a very different approach to classroom topics now under a national microscope.

The district is redoubling its efforts to expose students to Black history and culture. This year, it debuted a substantially updated and revitalized curriculum for the course of study that relies mostly on primary and secondary sources rather than a standard textbook.

Students examine such essential questions as how Black communities retained their cultural identity in colonial America, and they compare the philosophies that motivated figures like Booker T. Washington and Marcus Garvey.

They also discuss whether the nation’s founders were “hypocritical for claiming freedom” while they tolerated slavery in the nation they were creating. And they are asked to ponder why the history of slavery should be taught in schools to begin with.

Philadelphia’s revisions to the course and new training for teachers track with the Board of Education’s commitment in 2021 to “address racist practices” in a multitude of areas, from discipline to the content of classroom libraries. Part of the board’s goal is to ensure that the district’s students, most of whom are Black or Latino, “see themselves in the curriculum” throughout their school careers.

The district is also incorporating instructional materials about Black history beyond the high school course. And the new materials can look quite different from things like traditional classroom textbooks.

Philadelphia’s updated high school course creates a natural avenue for students to think about and discuss topics and authors that were recently removed from early drafts of the Advanced Placement African American Studies course that the College Board has been piloting.

The controversial elimination of topics like the Black Lives Matter movement and Black feminism took place following prominent complaints from Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, a Republican. The College Board has said that it did make changes to the course, but not due to political pressure.

Ismael Jimenez, the district’s social studies curriculum specialist and a driving force behind the revisions, cited the growing number of states where, as he put it, “You can’t even have these conversations” like the ones he wants to encourage.

Since early 2021, 18 states have enacted bans or restrictions on teaching topics related to race and racism, according to Education Week.

Legislators in Pennsylvania did make an effort in 2021 to restrict what could be taught about race, but their bill about the topic has failed to gain traction.

In Jimenez’s view, educators now have an even bigger obligation “to teach children the truth.”

New reading material and new training

Teachers in Philadelphia still have a Prentice-Hall textbook from 2005 for the mandatory high school course. But Jimenez said although the textbook is advanced considering when it was published, the district has also incorporated more primary sources, like Marcus Garvey’s “The Negro World.” The course relies on digital access for books like Garvey’s, which is available through the New York Public Library.

Links to sources, topics to be covered, and pacing schedules are listed for teachers in shared Google documents, which are continually updated.

When he taught the course for more than 12 years at two different high schools, “I found myself making my own materials,” Jimenez said.

Schools are also using materials that aren’t just more recent than Garvey’s work, but present history in a different way.

Earlier this month, Jimenez spoke to Philadelphia teachers and other district employees — many of whom work in elementary schools or preschools and don’t teach the mandatory high school course — at a Temple University event unveiling a new book for use in city schools called “Black Lives Always Mattered!”

The book was written and illustrated in the style of a graphic novel. It features 14 Black figures from 20th century Philadelphia history. These range from luminaries like opera singer Marian Anderson and sociologist W.E.B. DuBois, to lesser-known people like teacher and political activist Crystal Bird Fauset, photojournalist John W. Mosley, and Ruth Wright Hayre, who in the 1940s became the first Black high school teacher in the district and later rose to be Board of Education president.

The book’s lead illustrator and art coordinator is Eric Battle, who has worked for Marvel Comics and other publications. Battle said work on the book began in 2018, well before controversies about lessons on race and racism that are now making headlines.

“It came about as a way to let young people know their connections to the city, knowing why a street is named after a certain person. What did that person do to garner such an honor?” Battle said. “We want them to know that the people profiled in this book are ordinary people who did extraordinary things.”

Other changes are afoot to bolster the revised course.

While the student body in Philadelphia is mostly Black and Latino, more than two-thirds of the teachers are white. And although the mandatory course has been in city schools for 17 years, this is the first year teachers are required to attend professional development focused on the class.

Jimenez, who fought hard for the mandatory training, said it can be “problematic” if teachers “are left on their own without appropriate guidance” before presenting such important and potentially sensitive material.

Unlike in science, where teachers in Pennsylvania must be certified in the specialties of biology, physics and chemistry, social studies teachers have no such restrictions. They can be assigned to teach any required course, regardless of their expertise, even though “you have to be very knowledgeable on the subject before being able to go in and determine what should be emphasized or not,” Jimenez said.

Nicholaus Bernadini, who works at Samuel Fels High School, has been teaching African American history for 14 years and worked with Jimenez alongside other teachers to revise the mandatory high school course.

Bernadini, who is white and was born in Philadelphia, spent most of his formative years in Sea Islands, South Carolina among the Gullah people, a group of Black Americans who live along the southeastern coast and developed a distinctive culture. That background gives him a unique perspective. But Bernadini also recognizes that teachers from all walks of life can face “pitfalls” when dealing with the material.

“Teachers navigate better in environments where they can ask questions on what they are unsure about,” Bernadini said. “It is important for teachers to feel free to improve themselves as educators without backlash.”

During the professional development sessions for teachers on the course, Bernadini said there have been “incredible” conversations about everything from the role of states’ rights in the Civil War to personal perspectives on race.

“We had an educator talk about the idea that they don’t necessarily see color. We had a discussion around that along the lines of, ‘We can respect that, but what’s the impact of that mindset on you and your students?’” Bernadini said. “And while not all white teachers think that, there are teachers of color who don’t necessarily disagree. So having these conversations gets teachers to feel more comfortable about teaching the content.”

Jimenez said that teachers have told him that they appreciated the professional development sessions on a personal level.

“They realize that a lot of things they emphasized before were problematic and that it’s a reflection of the indoctrination in what society tells us about racial progress,” he said.

Teachers see broad benefits of learning Black history

Teachers at different levels of the school system say how invaluable it is for students to encounter things in their classes that presents them a fuller picture of American history through the lives of Black people. And they’re puzzled if not angered by those who say otherwise.

Tiffany Johnson teaches fourth grade at Ziegler Elementary School. Her students are learning about topics ranging from Black women’s contributions to society to the Green Book, a 20th century guide for Black travelers to the places they would be welcome to stay and to have a meal, where they could get their hair done, and which gas stations to patronize.

Many of her students previously had no idea about the existence of things like the Green Book in American history, she said.

“I don’t see what’s wrong with teaching the truth of what happened. I don’t get that. It’s not like we’re saying white people are bad,” said Johnson, who is Black. “We’re saying these events happened, this is how people reacted. The facts need to be told. It happened. We can’t sugarcoat it.”

Monique McKenney, now at Central High School, has taught African American history for most of her 24 years in Philadelphia schools. She said she is “not shocked, but disappointed and outraged” that politicians like DeSantis “would try to water down, or whitewash a curriculum that all students would benefit from.”

Central, one of the city’s leading academic magnet schools, is racially and ethnically diverse but it is predominantly white and Asian, unlike the district as a whole. In McKenney’s experiences, a broad cross-section of students have benefited from the lessons she teaches about the topic.

“It’s interesting to see students of various backgrounds who are able to connect with some of the experiences that you have in African American history,” said McKenney, who is also Black.

Some students, she said, “are surprised they’ve never heard about certain things before.”

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.

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.

Advocates praise school funding report, promise statewide campaign to back more spending

2024-01-12T22:50:52+00:00

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Education advocates said Friday they were encouraged by the report from the Basic Education Funding Commission, calling it a potential “game changer” for student opportunity in Pennsylvania if the General Assembly and Gov. Josh Shapiro implement its recommendations.

The report, approved on Thursday, recommends increasing school spending, drawing up a plan for what it means to fund students “adequately,” and overhauling charter school funding, among other proposals. The commission’s suggestions act as the first step in the state’s response to a 2023 Commonwealth Court ruling that the way Pennsylvania funds its schools is unconstitutional.

In a call with reporters, the advocates played down the divided vote on the commission, which approved the report by an 8-7 vote largely along party lines. All but one Democrat voted in favor and all Republicans opposed. And the Democratic dissent was from a legislator who felt it didn’t go far enough.

“This provides almost everything we need for a roadmap for success,” said Sharon Ward, senior policy adviser to the Education Law Center, which represented the plaintiffs in Commonwealth Court along with the Public Interest Law Center and the private law firm O’Melveny and Myers LLP.

But she and others also said that they would continue lobbying around the state to build political support for the larger state education investment that the commission is calling for.

Last February, after a four-month trial, Commonwealth Court Judge Renée Cohn Jubelirer ordered the state’s school funding system to be revised, responding to a lawsuit brought by six districts, several parents, and some advocacy groups. She ruled that the system deprived many students of a “thorough and efficient” education required by the state constitution and violated the federal right to equal protection.

After months of hearings all over the Commonwealth, the commission said Pennsylvania should increase its spending on K-12 education by $5.4 billion over the next seven years to meet the constitutional mandate, with most of that money, $5.1 billion, coming from the state rather than local districts. It also set a method for determining the amount each of the state’s 500 districts — which vary widely in demographics and poverty levels — would need to reach adequacy for their students.

“While not every (commission) member supported this, the minority accepted the court ruling,” said Marc Stier, executive director of the Pennsylvania Policy Center, a Harrisburg think tank, noting that Republican legislators who argued in court to keep the funding status quo did not appeal Jubelirer’s ruling. He noted that the Republicans’ 92-page minority report laid out a series of ways schools could be improved, “which cannot be put into place without new funding.” That report got six yes votes on the commission, six no votes, and three abstentions.

Donna Cooper, executive director of the advocacy group Children First, said “Republicans did not refute that there was an adequacy gap, and they were very clear to say that the solution to that needed to be found in the General Assembly.” She said the advocates “are looking forward to working with members on both sides of the aisle” to come up with a plan and to “rally parents, teachers, concerned citizens in every district, Republican and Democrat, to stand behind (legislators) as they do that.”

“ZIP code should never dictate the level of education students receive,” said Melissa Robbins, of the local Urban League chapter. David Heayn-Menendez, of the Latino advocacy group ACLAMO, described how so many Latino students in the city attend schools without basic amenities like a functioning library and a school nurse.

The commission report “lays a path to invest in our children, support our educators, and be a Commonwealth that genuinely supports the common good for all,” he said. “It is a commitment to bridging the gaps that have hindered our education system for generations.” No family, he said, should be “choosing between the future of their children and where they can afford to live.”

Pennsylvania is currently more reliant on local rather than state funding for its schools, with wide disparities in education spending depending on a district’s wealth. The national average for the state contribution is about 55%, while in Pennsylvania it is just 45%, which means that residents of the poorest districts are often overtaxed locally.

The commission’s recommendations included earmarking nearly $1 billion to ease the burden on high-tax districts.

Philadelphia is one of the districts with a high proportion of students from low-income families and has long argued that it has been shortchanged by the state. Its per-pupil expenditures fall below most of the surrounding suburbs, even though it serves a student population with greater overall needs.

Under the commission’s proposal, it would stand to see its annual state aid, now around $2 billion, increase by some $1.4 billion, or 70%, in seven years.

David Lapp of Research for Action said that such a boost would allow Philadelphia and other historically underfunded districts to give students more access to certified teachers, counselors, rigorous curricula, healthy facilities, and smaller class sizes — benefits that are taken for granted in wealthier areas.

“We believe the Commission’s report is a crucial first step forward ending the systemic underfunding of the School District of Philadelphia,” said Superintendent Tony Watlington in a statement. “We look forward to working with Governor Shapiro and the General Assembly to make its recommendation a reality in the coming months.”

In their own report, Republicans took issue with the commission setting adequacy targets at all, while also disputing the method it used.

“Unfortunately, the Commission could not reach a consensus on a model for measuring adequacy to recommend to the General Assembly. … It is up to the General Assembly to determine the appropriate adequacy model,” the Republican report said.

It added that any additional funding sent to districts “must include an accountability component to ensure those districts invest in programs that focus on high-quality academics.”

In court and in general, Republicans have long disputed the correlation between the amount of spending and education quality. House Republican leader Bryan Cutler issued a statement saying the report “continues the false choice that providing only more state funding will improve Pennsylvania’s public schools.”

He and other Republicans favor more choice for parents, including the creation of more charter schools and vouchers for private schools. They also cautioned that any big increases in education spending could result in higher taxes, especially when federal pandemic aid runs out.

The advocacy groups have said that if the state does not adopt a funding system that meets the constitutional mandate of adequacy and fairness, they will go back to court.

“What’s really going to be important is the acknowledgement that this is not just going to be a report on paper, but a report that informs the governor’s budget proposal,” said Ward. “It is and will be a game changer.”

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 violence prevention strategy could redefine safety for Philadelphia’s high schools

2024-01-11T17:35:27+00:00

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Kevin Rosa’s office at Bartram High School has a couch for conversations, a computer for recording music, and a stash of barbering supplies for anyone who needs a quick trim.

It’s also a place where students in the school’s Youth Violence Reduction Initiative can go when they’re involved in a conflict or just need a break.

Travis, 17, is one of 30 male students participating in the program. Travis said Rosa’s office would be his first stop if he felt himself falling in with people who might get him involved in a dangerous situation. “In this school that’s the only person I will really open up to,” he said. (Chalkbeat is using pseudonyms for students interviewed for this story to protect them from potential violence or threats of violence stemming from their participation in the program.)

As the program coordinator, Rosa juggles myriad responsibilities. He helps Travis and other students finish their schoolwork before they play video games or record rap tracks. If they have an unexcused absence from school, he visits their homes. Some of the students have been through the juvenile justice system, and some have violent incidents in their records.

“There’s a lot of things that we know that idle time does, so we try to fill the idle time, try to reinforce positive behaviors,” Rosa said.

The Youth Violence Reduction Initiative is the Philadelphia school district’s latest attempt to secure safer futures for the teens most at risk of engaging in violence. The one-school pilot is Philadelphia’s version of the national Comprehensive Gang Model, a set of strategies used in other cities that include one-on-one mentoring, group counseling sessions, tutoring, and — when needed — law enforcement supervision.

Youth Violence Intervention Program Coordinator Kevin Rosa poses for a portrait at Bartram High School on Wednesday, Jan. 10, 2024, in Philadelphia.

The initiative doesn’t provide direct services such as counseling or tutoring, but instead students are referred to community-based organizations.

The effort began about a year ago with $1 million in federal funding, and district leaders say it’s Philadelphia’s first formal, evidence-based violence reduction initiative inside a school. If it succeeds, the initiative could redefine safety on the city’s highest-risk campuses.

Although the city’s homicide rate has fallen so far this year compared to 2022, violence is an ongoing and urgent issue in Philadelphia, including for its young people. About 10% of the more than 1,500 victims of fatal and non-fatal shootings in 2023 were under the age of 18, according to the city’s latest data.

During the 2022-23 school year, 199 students were shot in Philadelphia, and 33 of those shootings were fatal, according to the school district. Twelve Bartram High students have been victims of gun violence since the start of the 2020 school year, the district said.

The school district has tried to prevent shootings by placing police officers in neighborhoods near schools, deploying monitors on campus perimeters, and launching conflict resolution programs. But the violence reduction pilot Rosa works in represents a different approach.

“Before we were sitting on the perimeter, now we’re looking at something extremely proactive,” said Kevin Bethel, the district’s former school safety chief, who now serves as Mayor Cherelle Parker’s police commissioner.

Student-involved shootings and incidents of students carrying guns are some of the situations project staff are looking at. But they’re also focusing on fights that occur between groups of students who are in conflict with one another. The district says the initiative aims to reduce violence in general, not just gun violence.

“One of our outcomes is gun violence, but I wouldn’t say that’s what we do,” said project director Brandy Blasko. “It’s violence in general.”

The pilot is staffed by Rosa, two case managers, a full-time research assistant, and a project director from the Office of School Safety.

A quote displayed in the office of Youth Violence Intervention Program Coordinator Kevin Rosa at Bartram High School.

While students like Travis are identified by the district as being at risk for involvement in violence, he chose to join — no students are placed there, nor are they required to join. Instead, it’s an option for those who feel they’re at risk and want extra mentorship and support. Although all the students in the initiative at Bartram High are male, female students can also participate.

Jerome, a 16-year-old Bartram student in the pilot, said the district has a role in keeping kids safe from violence. He said that a large number of his peers are carrying guns and will start conflicts with one another just because they want to.

“I don’t feel safe until I get in the house,” Jerome said.

Jerome came to Bartram from a different high school, where he said he was involved in multiple group fights. He said if not for the Bartram High program, he’d still be making “bad decisions” and would have been kicked out of school.

Helping students say no to violence

The U.S Department of Justice developed the Comprehensive Gang Model in the 1990s for use in communities as well as detention facilities. The Youth Violence Reduction Initiative is the Philadelphia school district version of that model; project leaders renamed it because many Philly teens don’t consider themselves gang members.

“To label our youth as gang kids, it’s just not a good idea,” Blasko said. “They’re just kids who just need some direction.”

In a community setting, the model involves a combination of city lawmakers, concerned community members, and law enforcement representatives according to Celeste Wojtalewicz, research associate with the U.S. Department of Justice’s National Gang Center.

“It makes sense to me that a school district could do this right with a combination of principals and teachers and counselors ‚and perhaps parents and also law enforcement, " she said. “School is everyone’s responsibility, and that’s the biggest piece.”

However, the Community Gang Model showed no statistically significant impacts in five pilot cities, according to a 2022 Urban Institute analysis that measured arrest rates and overall violent crime. A 2015 study from Suffolk University did find the model was associated with fewer youth arrests and smaller increases in homicides.

Jeffrey Butts, director of the research and evaluation center at John Jay College of Criminal Justice in New York City, said programs that focus on students only tackle a portion of a community’s overall violent crime problem. He also said that schools receiving grant money for violence prevention sometimes just use it to roll out interventions without studying them.

“Essentially the problem with the whole field is research and evaluation,” he said. “I don’t know if the school system is set up to test the effectiveness of their approaches.”

Blasko is tracking the program over the next three years based on 49 performance measures with help from a full-time research assistant hired by the district. Officials plan to release one-year outcome data this month, including updates on student-involved gun violence around the school and among students in the initiative.

Bartram High School in Philadelphia.

Butts says there would have to be intensive study on the schools and neighborhoods surrounding Bartram to prove that the Youth Violence Reduction Initiative changed trends in crime.

The Bartram High pilot involves a multidisciplinary team of counselors, psychologists, and external community partners. That team meets weekly to discuss individual student cases and any serious incidents of violence.

Also at that meeting are representatives from the Penn Community Violence Prevention Team, which handles conflicts in the neighborhoods surrounding Bartram High. They also monitor students who were in the pilot after they graduate from school.

The prevention team’s strategy focuses on decreasing impulsive behavior by talking to people about making better choices, said program manager Denise Johnson. She and her colleagues try to learn everything they can about someone’s situation — what their home life is like, how much access they have to guns — so they can offer resources such as family counseling or housing and employment assistance.

“School programs are great, but they only work with the individual during school hours,” Johnson said. “It’s a lot that goes on between 3:30 or 4 to the next morning.”

Rosa and his team sometimes have to look beyond their own resources to stem violence. For example, if a student tells him they’ve been threatened, especially if there’s a gun involved in the threat, he has to activate the Threat Assessment Protocol.

That’s a district-wide policy officials developed two years ago with help from the U.S. Secret Service and the University of Virginia. If a student in the violence reduction initiative receives a threat involving a gun, two Threat Assessment Liaisons will speak with the student who was threatened, try to identify whoever made the threat, and request support from police as needed.

“Sometimes we’re going to the home to see if a child has a gun and making sure they don’t have a gun,” Bethel said. “In some of the very few cases we will make an arrest because we find that it has been confirmed, we’ve identified a threat and we’ve seen it’s actionable.”

Bartram staff also call in community organizations to resolve specific conflicts. For example, Rosa noticed an uptick in fights between female students last school year and went to a Philadelphia organization called Conscious Queens that specializes in boosting girls’ self-esteem.

“Sometimes they get lost on the shuffle because they’re not the ones doing the overt violence,” Rosa said. “But they’re definitely involved with carrying guns, they’re in the car with people, stealing cars. … So we’re hoping to kinda tackle some of that.”

Music recording equipment in the Youth Violence Intervention Program room at Bartram High School. Students record original rap music as one of the activities in the program.

The Youth Violence Reduction Initiative will continue at Bartram under the current grant until October 2025. The district has already received funding from the Pennsylvania Commission on Crime and Delinquency to expand it to a second school beginning in the fall.

The district aims to find additional funding to do a longitudinal study of the violence reduction initiative’s participants over six or seven years.

Travis, the 17-year-old student, hopes to be a working electrician by then. Jerome wants to run his own Airbnb business.

“If this program was in every school, it would just help everybody see the bigger picture,” Travis said.

He said Rosa taught him how to calm down, control his temper, and focus on schoolwork.

“He gave me motivation to do my work,” Jerome said. “At one point I didn’t believe in myself, and he believed me.”

Correction, Jan. 12, 2024: This article has been updated to correct that the initiative doesn’t provide direct services to students but refers them to community-based organizations. A previous version of this article said the district didn’t provide the services. Additionally, the district has hired a research assistant to track the program. A previous version stated the district had hired a research analyst.

This Philadelphia teacher wants students to find themselves through theater

2024-01-10T22:19:20+00:00

Last month, Sally Wojcik, who teaches theater and creative writing at Benjamin Rush Arts Academy, was named by the Pennsylvania Department of Education as one of 12 finalists for state Teacher of the Year. Rush has just over 600 students who come mostly from its Northeast Philadelphia neighborhood, but as a criteria-based school, it also draws from all over the city. Some students commute up to two hours a day.

Students can choose from among various majors, including media arts, graphic arts, fine arts, theater, dance, and instrumental and vocal music. And once they choose their concentration, they take classes in that area every day and stay in that major for all four years. That means Wojcik is able to work with the same cohort of students for their entire high school careers and can plan a curriculum with that particular group in mind. “I was given full flexibility to design a curriculum that I thought was best for students,” said Wojcik, who chooses most of the plays her class will focus on, including some that may be controversial.

Rush has been her only teaching job, and she established its theater program there in 2009. She said she “was very lucky” when the director of Philadelphia Young Playwrights, who knew her from her work with the education outreach program of the Arden Theater, recommended her as a perfect fit for Rush, which was in the process of converting from a middle school to an arts-focused high school.

A summa cum laude graduate of Albright College, Wojcik has a master’s degree in English education (Pennsylvania does not offer teacher certification in theater) from Temple University, and also spent a semester at the prestigious National Theater Institute in Waterford, Connecticut. She spoke to Chalkbeat senior writer Dale Mezzacappa about how she approaches her “dream job” and why theater experience is important for high school students.

Why did you become a teacher?

I was a “theater kid” my whole life. That was always the thing that brought me the most joy and fulfillment when I was a high school student. And then I pursued it in college and when I finished college, I apprenticed at the Arden Theater Company in Philadelphia trying to figure out how I fit into the theater profession. I worked in Arden’s education department and realized that I really loved helping young people find their voice and figure out what kind of artists they wanted to be.

Tell me about your own experience in school and how that affects how you work today.

I was really lucky. I grew up in Western Massachusetts, and my high school had a longstanding relationship with Shakespeare & Company, which has an amazing program where they would pair their resident artists with schools, and would come to work with us on our own Shakespeare productions. I remember, as a student, being made to feel very much like a valued and important person, and I just loved being a part of a group that had this collective goal to tell a compelling story. All throughout high school I had these amazing teachers, one theater teacher in particular, who was also the journalism teacher, who inspired me to value words and language.

How do you teach theater? It can’t be just kids sitting in a classroom.

My approach is very holistic. Everybody knows what it means to be an actor because that’s what we are used to seeing, but my program purposely focuses also on directing, design, and playwriting. We actually do spend a bunch of time in the classroom sometimes because each of my units is tied to what I call an anchor text. We read, analyze, discuss, pull apart a text … then we break off so a student might do a scene study or create an original piece of playwriting based on inspiration within that play, or they might take on designing an aspect of that play.

What plays have you studied recently? And how do you choose them?

There are 15 to 16 plays over the course of four years. My goal is to make sure that every student at least once sees themselves represented in the plays I bring in. So it’s really important that they come from playwrights with diverse backgrounds that highlight diverse characters. We start at the very beginning … so there are a couple of Greeks, moving all the way up through contemporary plays. I try to bring in plays that have different kinds of conflicts, different kinds of themes, different kinds of structures or use of language. Every play has an engine, something that makes the play go, and it’s really important to bring in different kinds of engines so every student can get excited at some point.

What plays, specifically?

The ninth grade set curriculum is Antigone, A Raisin in the Sun, and The Glass Menagerie, three big canonical works. In 10th grade, it’s Medea and August Wilson’s The Piano Lesson, and I’m in the process of reworking what I want the third text to be. And in 11th grade, it’s How I Learned to Drive by Paula Vogel, BFE by Julia Cho, Intimate Apparel by Lynn Nottage, The Shape of Things by Neil LaBute, and then Hedda Gabler by Henrik Ibsen. The 12th grade is always whatever they chose as their senior play, then A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Stop Kiss by Diana Son, and 26 Miles by Philadelphia writer Quiara Alegria Hudes.

What kind of plays do the 12th graders choose?

We just finished a production of Elsewhere by Don Zolidis, which is a play that follows four teenagers into a kind of shared dream landscape where they have to navigate some childhood issues to realize what they want to become as adults. Last year, they did a murder mystery, and the year before that they did Tinkerbell, which is an adaptation of the Peter Pan story. Sometimes, I have veto power, but mostly, they’re chosen by students.

Rush focuses on the arts, but in other schools, arts tend to be the first thing to go when the budget gets tight. Do you think all students should be exposed to theater?

I think it is every student’s right to have access to high-quality arts education in the same way they have the right to a high-quality core curriculum. The thing I love about theater is that it’s about stories, and stories are the most fundamental way for humans to connect. Allowing students to explore other people’s stories gives them a pathway to explore and explain their own.

Is there a particular moment or production that you remember as being pivotal for you? Something that made you think, this is why I do this?

Well, lots of students have expressed to me that theater is the thing they come to school for. But there was a moment, I think, when my students changed me. It was maybe seven years ago, the senior production was Lillian Hellman’s The Children’s Hour, which deals with two female teachers who run a boarding school and had been accused by a student of being involved in a romantic relationship. The student was mad and wanted to get back at them, but what she didn’t know was that one of them really did have deep feelings for the other. And the student actors playing the teachers were just both so good. I was sitting in the audience when I thought, they are both, at age 17 or 18, better actors than I ever was. And it was this beautiful moment where I felt like they had surpassed my own skill level, and I was learning from them. My program is designed for students to become really independent of me. I provide all the scaffolding and the structure, so, then, they can do it on their own.

What is the best advice you ever got as a teacher?

When I first started working in Philadelphia, I took a workshop with Young Playwrights, and there was a speaker who said that our job is to help students find their voices, and not our voice through them. And that has been something that has always resonated in the back of my head. I am always looking for ways to center students in the work that they are creating, and to help them learn to trust themselves and their stories rather than looking to me for validation of their stories.

Have you ever had a parent or administrator try to censor what you were teaching?

It’s funny because I’m always waiting for that call. I’ve had parents ask questions, good questions, but I’ve never had a parent say their kid can’t read that, or can’t be a part of it. The play How I Learned to Drive [about a sexually abusive relationship between a teen and a trusted adult], every year I have students come to me afterward and say that the play changed their life, sometimes because they’ve been through something similar, and having the opportunity to process that through somebody else’s perspective has freed them. And I feel very backed up by the School District of Philadelphia. I feel really grateful for the progressiveness of the district I work in.

Did you ever aspire to be an actor?

No, this is actually my dream job. I was not ever very in love with the lifestyle of a professional artist [moving] from gig to gig. Part of what I love about being a theater teacher is that I get to really tuck in with the students and work with them over a long period of time. I love teenagers; I love this point of personal development when they are figuring out who and how they want to be. Teaching, for me, wasn’t a default. It was an active choice.

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

Pennsylvania should hike education spending by at least $2 billion, groups say

2024-01-04T23:05:48+00:00

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Education advocates want the state to hike education spending by $2 billion in the upcoming budget, saying that is the minimum necessary to start fixing a funding system that a Commonwealth Court judge ruled last year is unconstitutional.

In addition, Pennsylvania needs to invest additional capital funds to help districts update school facilities and expand access to preschool, according to a statement from the Education Law Center and the Public Interest Law Center, which represented the plaintiffs at the four-month trial. The proposal is also supported by PA Schools Work, a statewide coalition of groups that advocate for fair school funding.

The demands come a week before the Basic Education Funding Commission — a bipartisan group of legislators and state officials — is scheduled to release its report based on hearings it held across the state in response to Judge Renée Cohn Jubelirer’s ruling, and as the state’s annual budget process gears up.

The groups held a press conference Thursday to outline their desires for education spending. If Gov. Josh Shapiro and state lawmakers fall short, “we are prepared to go back to court to uphold the rights of those communities,” said Deborah Gordon-Klehr, executive director of the Education Law Center.

After a $2 billion education funding increase in the 2024-25 budget, the groups say an additional $1 billion should be added in each of the next four years, which they said will allow the state to close a $6.2 billion “adequacy gap” by 2028-29. Taking decisive action now is necessary “so that children currently in school will see the benefits,” they said.

When lawmakers approved the current state budget, they enacted an increase in basic education spending of $567 million, which combined with other aid increases brought total K-12 spending to $10 billion.

In February 2023, in her ruling on a lawsuit that several plaintiff districts and others filed in 2014, Jubelirer said the state contribution to school funding — meant to offset wealth disparities among districts — is both inadequate in the overall amount of money allocated and inequitable in how it is distributed. She concluded that as a result many students are deprived of their constitutional right to a “thorough and efficient” system of education.

At the trial, educators, experts and students described the impact of inadequate funding: large classes, insufficient counselors, outdated equipment, a lack of libraries, and teacher shortages due in part to inadequate pay. The defendants — the governor and legislature — eventually decided not to appeal Jubelirer’s ruling, and instead set up the commission to explore how to comply.

In a November letter to the funding commission, the group said that the General Assembly must determine “how much funding is needed to provide each child a constitutionally adequate, comprehensive, contemporary and effective education,” as well as determine the needs of each of the state’s 500 districts.

Experts testified during the trial that Philadelphia’s shortfall is in excess of $7,000 per student. According to the groups’ data, Philadelphia has a total “adequacy shortfall” of nearly $1.6 billion. Under their plan, the district would get an increase in state funding for 2024-25 of $500 million, as well as $250 million the next year. That additional money could go a long way toward helping new Mayor Cherelle Parker’s ambitions to implement year-round school and a longer school day.

They also noted that Shapiro, when he was attorney general, filed an amicus brief for the funding lawsuit that supported the plaintiffs’ claim of inadequate funding.

“Every child in our Commonwealth should have access to a high-quality education and safe learning environment regardless of their zip code,” he wrote in the 2022 brief. “Many Pennsylvania schools are not able to provide the level of education required by the Constitution—not for lack of trying, but for lack of funding … It is past time for the General Assembly to step up, comply with its constitutional obligations, and give our public schools the funding they need to educate our children.”

The advocates also released polling data from last year showing that most people think the current system is unfair, and that people did not oppose raising more state revenue to fund state school aid increases, as long as the burden fell on wealthier taxpayers.

In Pennsylvania, however, the state income tax, which raises most of the money that helps underwrite schools, is a flat tax — the same rate regardless of income. Courts have ruled that imposing a graduated tax, which would have higher rates for those making higher incomes, violates the state’s “uniformity” clause.

Donna Cooper, executive director of Children First, said during the press conference that according to the polling, citizens “know what is going on, they know about inequity,” and say officials “should do more to ensure the state is sufficiently funding schools.”

Noting that this is an election year and Pennsylvania is a swing state, she said while that sentiment is strongest among self-described Democrats, polling showed that 52% of Republicans also agreed with that statement.

“There is really a large amount of consensus on what is broken about this system,” said Public Interest Law Center attorney Dan Urevick-Ackelsberg, who argued the case before Jubelirer, adding that state officials need to change their mindset about education funding.

“It’s no longer a matter of political convenience,” he said at the press conference, “but a matter of what students are constitutionally entitled to.”

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.

North Philadelphia hails opening of T.M. Peirce, its first new public school building in 70 years

2023-12-21T20:12:57+00:00

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It was, Kendra Brooks said, a long fight.

She and other activists had advocated for years for a new school in their North Philadelphia neighborhood to replace the old T.M. Peirce Elementary building, which was built in 1909. But their pleas went unheeded — until a building engineer discovered flaking asbestos, causing community outcry.

Similar conditions at other schools have led to prolonged building shutdowns recently. In T.M. Peirce’s case, the district determined that the old building was so full of hazards like lead and mold that it had to be demolished. The Board of Education voted in September 2021 to replace it.

And on Wednesday, officials including outgoing Mayor Jim Kenney, Board of Education members, and Superintendent Tony Watlington celebrated the opening of a modern, $44 million school in one of the city’s most challenged neighborhoods, where about a third of residents live below the poverty line.

Peirce teachers and students will start using the new building in January, right after the holiday break. They have been located so far this school year in the nearby Pratt Elementary School, which closed in 2013 but has been retrofitted to serve as “swing space” while other schools undergo renovation or construction.

In fact, the new T.M. Peirce Elementary is the first new school built in North Philadelphia in 70 years, Watlington pointed out. (As of last year, the average public school building in the city was over 70 years old.)

“This school building says something about what we value for our students,” he said Wednesday.

Zamyrah Wicks, 8, left, and Ayaan Cole, 8, at the new T.M. Peirce Elementary School on Wednesday, Dec. 20, 2023, in Philadelphia. Officials hailed the new school building as a big step forward for North Philadelphia.

The building at 22nd and West Cambria Street can accommodate 625 students in grades K-6, and features furniture and rooms designed for collaborative work, as well as an auditorium and cafeteria with all the most modern amenities.

The message to the students, Kenney and other officials said, was that they matter as much as those in affluent areas “like Lower Merion and Radnor.”

City Councilmember Cindy Bass grew up in the neighborhood, and described as a student moving from school to school as one after another closed. Now, she said, this state-of-the-art school “is the standard” for education. T.M. Peirce Principal Anthony Gordon called it “a historical moment in North Philadelphia.”

Kenney used the ceremony to tout the $1.5 billion increase in city funding for schools during his tenure. Board of Education President Reginald Streater called the new school a “down payment” that would help future generations.

And State Sen. Sharif Street called the investment a matter of educational equity, citing the recent Commonwealth Court ruling that the school funding system in Pennsylvania is unconstitutional and inequitable for low-income areas like the community around Peirce. .

“Our young people are worth it. They deserve this building,” said.

Meanwhile, architect Kevin Blackney, whose firm designed the building, said that the school was designed by the community. “You don’t know how rewarding that is,” he said.

Members of the Dobbins High School marching band serenaded the crowd at the festive ceremony.

Among those in attendance was Joan Monahan, 88, who graduated sixth grade from Peirce in 1946 after serving as the leader of the student body, she said. Her daughter designed the child-friendly furniture at the new school.

Brooks worked with Sylvia Simms, Quibila Divine, and Shakeda Gaines as part of a formidable contingent of North Philadelphia women to get the new T.M. Peirce built. Their fight rippled across the city’s politics and civic life.

In 2017, Brooks rode the campaign, as well as other battles on behalf of children in the neighborhood, to a seat on the City Council, where she still serves.

Simms’ advocacy got her an appointment to the School Reform Commission, which ran the district when it was under state control until 2017, where she continued to fight for a new school. Divine now works to help homeless citizens through the Urban Affairs Coalition, and Gaines is a deputy chief of staff in Brooks’ council office.

Speakers at Wednesday’s ceremony acknowledged their presence and their role. “We never gave up,” said Simms after the ceremony.

Students filled up the first two rows of seats in the auditorium after the ceremonial ribbon cutting in their spiffy navy blue uniforms with a logo on the chest that read: “T.M. Peirce, 21st Century Learning.”

“This is a first class, state-of-the-art facility just for you,” Brooks told them. “Take advantage of it.”

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

This is the Pennsylvania tax break that keeps causing controversy on Philadelphia’s school board

2023-12-13T22:07:07+00:00

Some of the biggest and best-known development projects in Philadelphia are powered in part by a state tax break called the Keystone Opportunity Zone.

The Navy Yard in South Philly, Schuylkill Yards in University City, and the massive new Bellwether District at the former PES refinery are all part of the program, which was created in the late 1990s to spur redevelopment of post-industrial buildings and properties around Pennsylvania.

What does the program do? In short, KOZs eliminate almost all state and local taxes for the owners of the designated parcels and businesses in the zones.

State officials have described it as “one of the nation’s boldest and most innovative economic and community development programs.” Supporters say it’s an essential tool for clearing blight, reinvigorating dormant land that might otherwise be too expensive to redevelop, and inducing employers to come to or remain in Pennsylvania rather than being enticed to other states with their own generous incentive programs.

How well it accomplishes those goals, and at what cost, is unclear.

While the program is overseen by the state Department of Community and Economic Development, no one keeps track of exactly how many new jobs it creates, or how much lost tax revenue the KOZs cost each year.

With few obligations attached to the designation, many property owners receive tax abatements for a decade or longer while their sites remain partly or wholly undeveloped.

Initially just an effort to revive 12 properties across the commonwealth, the program has morphed into a huge program covering more than 2,000 parcels, including some that were already being developed or are in economically booming neighborhoods.

There are currently 287 zones in Philadelphia, according to the city Department of Commerce. Their use as a general-purpose economic development incentive has led to battles over designations that seemed to favor one politically connected developer over another — and some have criticized it for threatening to sap the school district of badly needed tax revenues.

From a dozen to thousands of tax breaks

Inspired by a similar program in Michigan, the Pennsylvania Legislature created the Keystone Opportunity Zone program in 1998, under Gov. Tom Ridge. The initial legislation created 12 areas, before subsequent legislation permitted many more.

The property owners get a real estate tax abatement, and businesses located on KOZs don’t have to pay most state and local taxes for the period of designation, which is usually between 10 and 15 years and can be renewed. (In Philadelphia, however, they do have to pay the wage tax for employees.)

Each designation area must be approved by the state — and by local entities that stand to lose tax revenue. In Philadelphia, that’s City Council and the Board of Education.

Over time, the rules for KOZs were eased.

For example, the original law required a company located in a KOZ to either boost employment by 20% or invest at least 10% of its previous year revenue to receive the tax abatements. After the turn of the millennium, that rule was changed. To get the tax break, a tenant firm had only to sign a lease covering the duration of the zone and spend at least 5% of the previous year’s revenue on rent.

State: It’s impossible to collect data to assess the program cost

The KOZ program is often criticized for poor transparency and accountability, and a lack of clarity about how to measure its success. The state initially hired the Allegheny Institute for Public Policy in Pittsburgh to monitor the program but ended the arrangement in 2002.

“They weren’t really interested in whether it did any good, and that’s a shame,” the institute’s president Jake Haulk later told the Inquirer.

In 2009, a state legislative committee tried to review the program, but ended up without a firm conclusion — saying that the Department of Community and Economic Development didn’t provide reliable data.

The DCED claimed the program had created 63,966 new jobs and retained over 48,158 jobs, but reviewers concluded the data was “substantially overstated and not supportable.” The agency didn’t calculate the program’s cost in lost taxes, and declined to release the value of tax credits received by a sample of KOZ participants.

The committee report also noted that, 10 years into the program, about 70% of approved KOZ acreage statewide remained undeveloped and many participants “received KOZ benefits without having to create jobs or generate capital investment.”

Philadelphia had 2,755 KOZ acres at the time, of which 53% were undeveloped.

State officials said it would be expensive and difficult to collect tax data for all of the state’s hundreds of KOZs, and impossible to disentangle the program’s job-creation and development effects from those of other incentive programs.

City: Yes, but we can estimate — and it could take 50 years to pay off

One of the few substantial efforts to analyze KOZs — at least those in Philadelphia — was conducted in 2014 by then-City Controller Alan Butkovitz.

He concluded that the program created a major tax burden for a meager return, WHYY’s PlanPhilly reported. It had so far cost the city and school district more than $380 million in abated business and property taxes, he found, while netting $132 million in wage taxes from 617 participating businesses.

More than 70% of that came from businesses that were already paying wage taxes before, rather than new enterprises.

By analyzing tax data, Butkovitz calculated the KOZs had created 3,700 jobs, with the city waiving more than $100,000 in tax revenue for each one. At an average salary of $50,000 per job, it would take more than 50 years of wage taxes for those new jobs to pay for themselves.

Like the state legislative committee, the controller concluded that “the records necessary to provide adequate oversight of the KOZ program largely do not exist.”

IRS rules barred the city from releasing participants’ tax bills, and the only direct data on job creation was self-reported by the businesses.

The city’s Department of Commerce also commissioned a report in 2019 on the program’s costs and benefits.

From 2008 and 2017 Philadelphia had foregone between $40 million and $125 million each year in two types of business taxes, the BIRT and NPT, or $645 million total in 2019 dollars, the report said. A breakdown of the 2016 data showed that financial services firms received 70% of the BIRT abatements that year.

When other types of taxes were included, the total value of abatements over those 10 years was $627 million, while city revenues from wage, sales and other taxes from the KOZ businesses was $462 million, the analysis found. Looking over a 15-year period, the report projected $676 million in revenues, or $49 million more than the KOZs cost, and argued that meant the city would see a 10% return on its investment.

The larger businesses in KOZs together reported employing the equivalent of 9,025 full-time employees, the report said. That figure was not independently verified, and the report did not say how many of those were newly created jobs.

The study concluded that KOZ status had some influence on where businesses decided to locate, but the financial services firms that received most of the benefit created few jobs and there was no mechanism for ensuring participants delivered broader public benefits beyond developing the parcels.

It recommended approving KOZs only where new development would not occur anyway; providing prospective tenants with clearer estimates of the benefits of locating in a KOZ; changing laws to allow cities to offered tailored payment in lieu of taxes (PILOT) plans to KOZ businesses; and limiting use of the program by companies that produce few jobs. The city has since established PILOTs for some of its KOZs to compensate for the loss of school district revenues.

What defines ‘blight’ when applying for a tax break?

Around 2004, Gov. Ed Rendell proposed designating proposed office tower projects in Philadelphia as KOZs, provoking a stormy debate.

Critics argued using the designation for downtown office towers would benefit politically connected developers and wealthy law firms, favor new buildings over old ones, and continue to move jobs around rather than boosting overall employment.

At the time, there were at least 112 existing KOZ properties in Philadelphia exempted from real estate taxes, per the Inquirer. Many companies had relocated to the zones from elsewhere in Philly, not from outside the city. Their combined assessed value was $38 million, which would translate to $3.2 million in foregone annual property taxes. The city’s total property tax collections that year were close to $900 million.

Only the future Cira Centre next to 30th Street Station ended up getting the designation that year.

Comcast’s planned tower at 17th and JFK Boulevard was denied KOZ status, but it received a reported $43 million in other state subsidies, and was built anyway.

In 2011, after Philadelphia’s first set of KOZs expired, an Inquirer analysis found that most of the job growth the state attributed to them came from just one site — a Marshall’s distribution center near Philadelphia Northeast Airport that employed 1,500 people. With the KOZs’ expiration, the tenant businesses would start paying $6.3 million in new property taxes.

By 2016, when there were close to 150 KOZ properties in Philadelphia, City Council passed a bill to add 80 more.

Critics noted that some of the new zones were already slated for redevelopment while others were in University City and other economically booming areas where tax stimulus was arguably not needed.

Council also approved then-Councilmember Helen Gym’s bill requiring KOZs to report how much subsidy they receive, the number of jobs they create and other information. Gym said the goal was to ensure the KOZs were creating jobs rather than just shifting them from place to place.

Lobbying reverses 382 board denials

Proposals to create or extend KOZs continue to generate pushback when they come before the Philadelphia school board.

In 2018, another 68 parcels in Philly were added despite concerns that many were not blighted. The Frankford Arsenal Complex in Northeast Philly, for example, was already developed and had recently sold for $6 million.

In an effort to protect education funding, the owners of those particular properties agreed to make payments in lieu of taxes, or PILOTs, that were 10% higher than the usual amount of property taxes reserved for the schools.

In 2020, the school board initially rejected a 10-year extension for part of the former South Philly refinery, where Hilco Redevelopment Partners is building the Bellwether District. After Hilco vowed to provide jobs for graduates of city schools, a dissenting board member changed her vote, and the extension was approved.

Another controversy arose in 2020 when a wealthy law firm, Dechert LLP, sought a second round of KOZ tax breaks by moving from the Cira Centre, whose KOZ status had expired, into a planned building at Brandywine Realty Trust’s Schuylkill Yards office tower complex near 30th Street Station.

The state DCED argued that would defeat the law’s purpose of revitalizing distressed areas, but a court ruled the KOZ statute contained no restriction on zone-hopping and allowed the move to proceed.

This past August, the school board approved extensions of several KOZs but initially rejected one for the Arsenal property in Tacony. After lobbying by the developer and a visit to the site by some board members, the board again reversed itself and approved the extension.

This article has been updated with details from the 2019 city report.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Rough financial waters ahead for Philadelphia schools

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Board extends contract for reading services

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Ada Lewis Middle School

Community College of Philadelphia’s Northwest Campus

Thomas Mifflin School

Martin Luther King High School

Roosevelt Elementary School

Austin Meehan Middle School

Washington High School

Conwell Middle Magnet School Annex

Feltonville Intermediate School

Mastbaum High School

Roberto Clemente Middle School

E. Washington Rhodes Elementary School

Penn Treaty School

Anna B. Pratt Elementary School

Strawberry Mansion High School

South Philadelphia High School

W. S. Peirce Elementary

McDaniel Annex

Bartram High School

Daroff Charter School

Robert E. Lamberton Elementary School

Morton McMichael School

Overbrook High School

Tilden Middle School

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

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

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.

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.

Philadelphia teachers say they are passionate about their jobs but feel underpaid and overworked

2023-11-30T21:31:41+00:00

Philadelphia teachers feel supported by their school leadership, their students, and their colleagues, but nevertheless feel overwhelmed by their workload and the demands made on them.

And they think their own school is doing well, but they think the district as a whole is going in the wrong direction. They say they are passionate about their job, but think they are underpaid and overworked.

Those were among the key results of a survey of 734 district and charter school teachers conducted on behalf of Elevate 215, a nonprofit organization once called the Philadelphia School Partnership, which was a proponent of charter school expansion. There are more than 8,200 teachers in district schools and another several thousand in charters.

Asked to pick their top three concerns, teachers cited their workload (46%), unrealistic expectations around student achievement (41%), and inadequate salary or benefits (39%).

Based on responses to survey questions, teachers in charter schools are somewhat more satisfied with their jobs than those in district schools. For instance, 79% of charter school teachers said they were satisfied with the “vision and priorities established at my school,” compared to 64% of district teachers. And just 33% of district teachers expressed satisfaction with the condition of their facilities and level of resources, compared to 71% of charter teachers.

There were also key differences in attitude among veteran teachers versus their newer colleagues and between white teachers and those of other races, especially regarding whether they plan to stay in teaching over the long haul.

In one interesting finding, just 41% of teachers who have been in the district at least 16 years feel the district offers the possibility for a “rewarding career.” A higher proportion of those with five or fewer years’ experience, 52%, agreed with that statement.

In the survey, charter teachers, which according to the survey skew younger and have less experience, expressed higher levels of satisfaction with their salaries and working conditions.

Charter teachers also said by higher margins, 68% versus 41%, that they felt their “input matters” regarding school policies and practices.

Jerry Jordan, president of the Philadelphia Federation of Teachers, said that the survey offered “no big surprises,” rather reflecting “concerns that I and my staff have been hearing from our members,” top among them being teacher salaries that are not keeping up with inflation. He said many PFT members leave for higher salaried jobs in suburban districts.

“Teachers indicated that they really like what they do, but want to be respected for what they do as well. We’ve been hearing that for a number of years,” he said.

He also said he wasn’t too surprised by the finding that charter school teachers, who are not unionized and tend to make less money, expressed somewhat higher satisfaction with their salaries. Many of them are new and in their first jobs, he said. “We were all excited when we got our first jobs,” he said.

Most teachers in Philadelphia are white and female, although based on the survey responses, there seems to be an uptick in male teachers and teachers of other races. For instance, 71% of the teachers surveyed with five or fewer years of experience are female, compared to 81% of those with 6-10 years and 82% of those with 11 years or more. Also, 49% of those in teaching for five years or fewer were white, compared to 67% of those with 6-10 years’ experience and 69% of those with more than that.

Teachers of color are also more likely to live in Philadelphia – 70% of Black teachers and 81% of Hispanic teachers, compared to 54% of those who are white. Teachers of color are also less likely to be fully certified, with 29% of Black teachers and 39% of Hispanic teachers having an emergency certification, compared to 6% of whites.

The survey was conducted between Sept. 27 and Oct. 9, with respondents recruited via email invitation. The margin of error is 3.6%.

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

Talk, not fists: Philadelphia students with discipline issues learn how to defuse conflict

2023-11-20T21:18:40+00:00

Luis Rios used to have one way to react when he felt he was being dissed: with his fists.

Luis, 15, aspires to be an architect and eventually work in his father’s construction firm. He was a straight A student at Philadelphia’s Hopkinson Elementary School, where he was good at math and loved to draw. He enrolled at Bodine High School for International Affairs, a special admission school that he and his father, Nelson, hoped would keep him away from trouble.

It wasn’t to be.

He felt out of place at Bodine, and his home life was in turmoil. During his first year at the school, he got into fights. He was barred from participating in sports due to his disciplinary infractions and sagging grades. This only made him angrier, setting off a vicious cycle. Eventually, after several incidents and the appropriate due process proceedings, he was sent for sophomore year to Achieve Academy East, a “transition” school for students with discipline infractions, where they can work on controlling their anger and learning how to solve problems without resorting to violence.

Last week, Luis was one of 27 students at the school who received certifications for completing a six-week program run by Temple University on conflict resolution for youth. In the program, which began in 2022, the students learn de-escalation strategies, primarily through intensive discussion and role-playing.

The school, which is privately managed by Specialized Education Services, keeps students for 45-day placements, after which they transition back to other schools.

“The Temple program helped me control my emotions, to defuse the situation,” Luis said.

The biggest thing he learned? “How to keep your mouth shut,” he said. “You can’t be mad when things don’t go your way.”

When he went to get his certificate during a ceremony at Achieve, Luis — a talented baseball and football player and boxer — was so excited that he executed a full flip on his way to the stage. And Luis did so well in the program that he qualified to be a youth conflict specialist intern and work with other young people, said clinical director Samantha Petroski.

Luis’s cohort is the fourth to complete the program, she said, which by spring will be in seven district schools. Since its inception, 225 students have graduated from the program, said Tricia Jones, who runs it for Temple.

“We come in and find them so open and ready to talk about things that matter, to take on challenges, how they want to do things differently,” Jones said at the ceremony where Rios and others got their certificates. “There are a lot of places to spend their time, and it’s special they choose to do this,” she said.

Jones said in a later interview that the program helps students learn skills that empower them “to move forward in life and achieve their goals.”

‘Think about other people’s feelings’

Nylaah Booker, 14 was sent to Achieve after she was caught at Finletter Elementary School with “contraband,” which means either alcohol or drugs, on her person. She said she agreed to hold it for someone else. She also had, by her own admission, “a little temper problem.”

“I was a good student,” she said. “I got myself into a situation.”

Conflict can escalate quickly for students — a joking comment that someone takes seriously can devolve into cussing, pushing, and even worse. A fight can eventually lead to gunfire, “or we can talk about it and hug it out,” Nylaah said.

And that possibility of violence isn’t just an abstraction for Nylaah: She lost her brother to gun violence. Then her mother had a heart attack not long after.

“There was a lot of stuff I was angry at,” she said. She said she has “bad anxiety” and has trouble just talking to people and making friends.

Now, she said, “I don’t react to petty things.” She learned skills during the Temple program that kept her away from “being angry all the time.”

Having completed the conflict resolution program, she plans to complete her school year at Franklin Learning Center and, like Luis, will also become a mentor to other students – a paid job. Nylaah is eager to share what she’s learned.

“A key is to think about other people’s feelings, not just your own, she said. “It helped me mature more, it helped me definitely see things differently.”

Both Nylaah and Luis have been at Achieve since the start of the school year. At Achieve, in addition to learning how to deal with conflict and his emotions, Luis is also learning to lean into his talents.

“I like to draw, for me personally, art is a way for me to calm down so I can use art to express my feelings,” he said.

Even now, Luis said he really doesn’t regret anything he did in the past, but vows to do better in the future.

“His lack of focus in school was in reference to everything happening at home,” Nelson Rios said. His parents are divorced, and Rios’ business had difficulties that forced the family out of their home. His children went from “having everything” to living on the edge.

He also understands his son’s anger and his journey. “I’ve been to jail,” Nelson Rios said.

But, in Luis’s world, controlling your anger could mean life or death, he said, and he’s grateful his son is on a better path.

“I grew up in the boxing world,” Nelson said, who runs a boxing program for youth and has taught Luis to box since he was little. “But now we live in a day and age when you can’t put your hands up because you’re afraid the other person will pull out a gun.”

His message now: “It doesn’t make you less of a man to avoid arguments.”

Luis will be going to Excel Central, an “accelerated” high school for students who are over-age and under-credited. Because of his rocky year at Bodine, Luis fell behind on accumulating credits.

“They will help him catch up, and he can graduate from there or go to a regular district school,” said Jennifer Green, the school’s executive director.

He will also be able to play sports for a regular district high school if he does well.

Luis said he wants to stay to graduate at Excel Central and then go to Florida State University.

“I don’t want to go to jail,” he said. “I want to go to college.”

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

Philly’s premier high school requires 8th grade algebra for admission. Many kids can’t take it.

2023-11-13T17:14:31+00:00

Every year, hundreds of students in some of Philadelphia’s poorest neighborhoods can’t apply to the city’s most prestigious high school for a simple reason: They can’t take eighth grade algebra at their local public school.

The advanced math course is only offered in 50 of 195 K-8 and middle schools in the district that have eighth grades. A review by Chalkbeat of the schools where algebra is offered, and the schools that recently began offering it, shows a pattern:

In general, the lower the median household income in the school’s surrounding neighborhood, the less likely that algebra is available to eighth graders.

Students who attend schools where algebra is not offered are automatically shut out of applying to Masterman in high school, the district’s most selective school, because the course is a prerequisite for admission. The requirement has been in place for at least 20 years, according to district spokesperson Marissa Orbanek.

The fact that algebra is a barrier to entry at one of Philadelphia’s premier schools highlights challenges with the district’s efforts to revamp admissions in the name of equity and to overhaul its math curriculum.

Philadelphia’s approach to the course underscores a national debate about the importance of eighth grade algebra. Some say that early algebra can set students on a path to completing calculus in high school, often a prerequisite for those seeking to be STEM majors in college. But others say such an approach can exacerbate inequality without giving most students an understanding of practical math they need to succeed in life.

In 2014, San Francisco prohibited eighth grade algebra because different student groups had vastly different outcomes. But now there’s a movement afoot in the city to change that. Cambridge, Massachusetts schools recently stopped offering eighth grade algebra. The debate has also raged in New York City where a mandate to expand and standardize the way algebra is taught has received polarizing feedback from teachers.

Janine Remillard, a professor at the University of Pennsylvania’s Graduate School of Education who is an expert on math curriculum, said research shows that the outcomes for students who take algebra in eighth instead of ninth grade are a “mixed bag.” That aside, she said, the eighth grade requirement means that admission “is really about what school you went to” before Masterman.

“It’s enormously problematic that Masterman is using eighth grade algebra as criterion in a district where equity issues are so much at play,” Remillard said.

Current decisions about where to offer algebra in eighth grade are based on analysis of sixth and seventh grade student math performance, Orbanek said, as well as input from principals and central office staff.

“Equity of access, even surrounding Algebra I, still needs to be worked on,” said Jeannine Payne, who has been principal of Masterman since 2021.

Payne, who formerly led two North Philadelphia elementary schools that rarely sent students to Masterman, said when taking the job that she wanted to create more opportunities at the magnet school.

Making eighth grade algebra more widely available is part of Superintendent Tony Watlington’s plans for a $70 million curriculum overhaul that began this school year with math. But the lack of access to algebra illustrates that a huge investment in new materials alone does not necessarily address serious concerns about inequity, and that current practices can deny students opportunities that extend beyond just admission to Masterman, said Remillard.

Orbanek said a team is reviewing how and where the district currently offers the course. The district did not make anyone on that team available for an interview.

There is a district program in which eighth graders at several schools jointly take the same algebra class. But that effort, which is called Cross School Learning and began last school year, still leaves many students without access to the course in eighth grade. The program started with three schools and now includes 16.

At the October Board of Education meeting, Watlington shared state test score data showing declines in algebra proficiency from 2018-19 to 2022-23 of 6.6 percentage points among district students, and an increase in below basic scores of 8.3 percentage points, even as PSSA scores for grades 3-8 improved between 2021-2 and 2022-3. On this year’s state math exams overall, just 20.4% of students scored proficient or better, an improvement on 2022 but slightly below pre-COVID achievement.

“If kids are not prepared, why offer [8th grade algebra]?,” Remillard said. “That’s a problematic approach as well.”

Which students can get into Masterman?

Getting into Masterman is already very challenging, especially for those seeking to begin in ninth grade rather than in fifth grade, the earliest students can enroll. Historically, no more than roughly 10% of students have been admitted to Masterman just for high school. But that percentage is changing.

For decades, Masterman’s enrollment has seldom reflected that of the district as a whole — it is predominantly white and Asian, while the district is made up of mostly Black and Latino students. That disparity sparked protests in 2020 after the killing of George Floyd.

Two years ago, in an effort to broaden access for two dozen criteria-based schools, the district overhauled its admissions system, including for Masterman. In place of a process that gave most of the power to individual principals to choose from among qualified students, it established a citywide lottery.

The lottery gave automatic admission to students from historically underrepresented ZIP codes, most in North and West Philadelphia, to their top choice school — if they qualified based on their grades, test scores, and other potential factors.

But just five of the 28 schools that have an eighth grade in the targeted ZIP codes — which are mostly in North Philadelphia — offer algebra in eighth grade, according to information from the district.

Two of the schools in the priority ZIP codes that do offer the course in eighth grade, Carver High School of Engineering and Science, which includes grades 7-12, and Conwell Middle Magnet, are not neighborhood schools and have their own admissions requirements. In Carver’s case, most of the eighth graders stay there for high school.

“Until you put algebra in all those schools, having it as a requirement for entry to any high school is inequitable,” said one district official, who was not authorized to speak publicly and spoke on the condition of anonymity. “Even if your plan is to put algebra everywhere in eighth grade, we don’t have it yet. How is it just, how can you say you’re creating more equity and favoring some ZIP codes, if students are coming from schools located there that t don’t offer it?”

Since the district switched to a lottery to determine final admission to the district’s most selective schools, the percentage of students entering Masterman in ninth grade has increased to about 30% in the current school year because, unlike in the past several years, eligible Masterman eighth graders were no longer automatically offered a spot in ninth grade.

But the district announced it will go back to automatic admission for eighth graders into the ninth grade starting in 2024-25, which could reduce the percentage again.

Expansion of eighth grade algebra uses hybrid classes

Citywide, student success in algebra classes has also varied significantly between the eighth and ninth grade in a way that suggests preparedness for algebra doesn’t necessarily improve as students get older. Last year, nearly 15% of the 8,300 students who took algebra in ninth grade didn’t pass the course, while only seven of the nearly 1,400 students who took it in eighth grade didn’t pass, according to data the district provided to Chalkbeat.

The district is trying at least one approach to increase access. In its Cross School Learning program, selected eighth grade students from several schools take algebra classes jointly.

The hybrid online and in-person program started in the 2022-23 school year at J.S. Jenks, Lingelbach, and Shawmont elementary schools. This year, it expanded to 13 more schools, which are among the 50 that the district lists as making eighth grade algebra available.

There are currently five teachers who give lessons in three schools each. The teachers travel from school to school, providing in-person instruction in one while the other two schools are virtual.

The decision where to expand the Cross Schools Learning program was based on an analysis of sixth and seventh grade student math performance, said Orbanek, the spokesperson, as well as input from principals and teachers. Students in algebra also receive regular eighth grade math instruction so they can be prepared for state math tests.

“Cross Schools Learning has been vital for our school this year,” Jenks Principal Corinne Scioli said in a video promoting Cross School Learning. “So many of our eighth grade students are not having the opportunity to apply and be considered for some of our most competitive high schools in the city.”

Correction: Nov. 17, 2023: Decisions about whether to offer algebra in eighth grade are made with input from principals and central office staff. Due to incorrect information provided by the school district, a previous version of this article said union leaders were involved in the decisionmaking.

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.

Cherelle Parker will be Philadelphia’s 100th mayor. Here’s what she wants to change about education.

2023-11-08T11:30:00+00:00

There was never much doubt that Cherelle Parker would become the city’s 100th mayor and the first woman ever to lead the nation’s sixth largest city. On Tuesday night, she defeated Republican David Oh, winning more than 73% of the vote.

Like mayors before her, she will lead a city with an underfunded school district beset by concentrated poverty — conditions that limit schools’ ability to make major inroads on the traditional measures of student achievement such as proficiency on state tests and graduation rates.

But unlike previous mayors, Parker — who started her career as a teacher — will take office when a major contributor to those conditions is on the verge of significant change.

That’s because the state is working to comply with a Commonwealth Court judge’s order from February to revamp a state school funding system that has resulted in wide gaps in spending between high- and low-income districts, and has historically shortchanged Philadelphia.

Although the city’s public school district was not a plaintiff in the case that led to the judge’s order, Philadelphia schools could benefit greatly from any changes to the state funding formula, and increases in overall education funding, that Pennsylvania lawmakers ultimately adopt.

What will also help define Parker’s tenure as mayor is how she will use her power to appoint all nine members of the Philadelphia Board of Education — she can rebuild it from scratch, if she wants — and what will happen regarding the one far-reaching education proposal she shared during the mayoral campaign: a year-round schedule for schools.

Parker pushes for more Philadelphia school funding

Parker grew up on Philadelphia’s West Oak Lane, the daughter of a teenage mother. She was raised by her grandparents and attended Philadelphia public schools, graduating from Girls High.

When she voted Tuesday morning, she brought along her high school English teacher, Jeanette Jimenez, who encouraged her to write about her life after her grandmother died.

“I wouldn’t be here without you,” she said.

She was the first in her family to go to college. After attending Lincoln University, she briefly taught English and English as a second language in Pleasantville, New Jersey, before interning for former City Council member Marion Tasco and setting off on a political career.

She will work as mayor to launch all young people on a path of self-sufficiency, she said at her victory speech at the Sheet Metal Workers Local 19 headquarters Tuesday night.

As a member of the City Council and as a state legislator, Parker leveraged methods to collect more revenue for schools, including an initiative that went after delinquent property taxpayers in Philadelphia.

Philadelphia Mayor-elect Cherelle Parker celebrates with supporters on Nov. 7, 2023.

The mayor of Philadelphia has no direct authority over the School District of Philadelphia. But with the power to appoint all nine members of the Board of Education (subject to City Council approval), Parker can help shape education policy on key issues. These include spending priorities, charter schools, how to deal with the district’s aging buildings, and negotiations with unions for the district’s educators and other staff.

Through the school board, she can also influence where (and whether) to close schools and where to build new ones, and how to enhance student safety with respect to everything from environmental hazards such as loose asbestos to gun violence that has plagued the city.

During the campaign, Parker did not tip her hand on any intentions to keep or replace the current board members, saying she would not discuss any personnel issues before the election.

Parker favors keeping schools open longer

Parker’s signature education proposal in the mayoral race was to institute year-round schooling. She said what she had in mind would not involve more days of traditional classroom seat time for students, but more breaks spread throughout the year and a shorter summer vacation, coupled with increased access for students to enrichment activities.

Parker also advocated for a school day that starts earlier and ends later.

In making both these proposals, she cited the hardship that school schedules pose for many parents, rather than touting the additional time as an educational improvement strategy.

“Not all of the young people in the school district of Philadelphia are in the Hamptons in the summer, or at the Vineyard.” she said in her victory speech. “Maybe you thought they were there. But they are not.”

She added that “for those who are being raised, particularly in circumstances like mine, particularly when they’re being raised by someone other than their biological parents, they can benefit from creative year round scheduling. They could benefit from going to school in the morning and having it open until 6:30 in the evening.”

She said after the traditional school day is over, students could learn coding, financial literacy, and other subjects. “I’m getting ready to tell you the big one for me is homework help and tutoring,” said the mayor-elect, who is the mother of a young son. “Have you seen the math today?”

As far as paying for any such change, she has said she favors devoting a higher proportion of the city’s property tax revenue to the district — 58% instead of 55%. Parker said that change would bring $50 million in additional revenue for schools even before any statewide funding reform.

Parker is a strong union supporter, and many of the city’s labor leaders endorsed her in the Democratic primary, although the Philadelphia Federation of Teachers supported rival Helen Gym. PFT president Jerry Jordan did not attend Parker’s victory party Tuesday night, unlike many other union heads, but issued a statement saying members “celebrate and honor this momentous and historic occasion… (Parker’s election) shows little girls, especially Black girls, what they can achieve.”

On social media, American Federation of Teachers President Randi Weingarten also congratulated Parker for making history as the first woman to lead the nation’s sixth largest city.

Parker will for sure need union buy-in for her plan to move to a year-round school schedule and keep school buildings open longer.

Cherelle Parker holds her hand up to honor Delta Sigma Theta sorority after winning the mayoral election and becoming Philadelphia’s 100th mayor on Nov. 7, 2023.

Parker skirts divisions over charter schools

One area where Parker as a candidate took a measured approach was charter schools.

Nearly one-third of Philadelphia’s public school students attend charters, making the city home to one of the largest charter sectors in the country. The school board must approve charter school applications, and has essentially imposed a moratorium on new charters since 2018.

During the campaign, Parker did not directly answer a question from Chalkbeat about whether she would like Philadelphia to have more charter schools.

“I want quality seats, and I don’t care where they are,” she said, adding: “I will not allow anyone to act as if district-run and charter schools are warring factions.” She forcefully repeated that in her victory speech Tuesday.

“If anybody is interested in talking to me about public education, and you’re trying to pitch traditional publics against charters, don’t do it,” she said.

Parker has also avoided wading into a controversy over whether the Board of Education has discriminated against Black-led charter schools.

A report issued by a law firm last month found problems with the charter monitoring system that has resulted in a larger proportion of Black-led charters being closed. But the report, two years in the making, found no “intentional” racial discrimination.

Parker did say that as mayor she would “insist” that the state legislature reinstate a budget provision that sent millions of dollars to school districts to compensate them for “stranded costs” linked to charters and cyber charter schools that occur when students leave district schools in patterns that don’t allow for neat downsizing.

That provision was eliminated in 2011 by state lawmakers under the administration of former Gov. Tom Corbett, a Republican; half the total amount came to Philadelphia. Losing that reimbursement was among the factors that fueled resistance in Philadelphia to expanding the charter sector, including near the end of the period when the district was under state control from 2001 to 2017.

Parker’s main goal now, which she said is attainable through government and private collaboration: “We want all of our children in a 21st century, modern school building with the highest academic achievement.”

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

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 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

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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.

On Philly trip, U.S. education secretary assails vouchers like those backed by Shapiro

2023-10-16T21:29:18+00:00

U.S. Education Secretary Miguel Cardona said he is “totally against” any private school voucher program, like the kind Pennsylvania’s governor publicly backed this year, until public schools receive the state dollars they are owed.

“The moment public schools are fully funded, we could have that conversation,” Cardona told Chalkbeat at a Monday event in Philadelphia about career and technical education. “Right now, I am totally against any public education dollars going to private school vouchers.”

Cardona’s comments could underscore a political risk for Pennsylvania Democratic Gov. Josh Shapiro. His support for a state-backed school voucher program has boosted his national profile and fueled rumors he may be eyeing higher office. Yet that position also leaves Shapiro out of step with much of the Democratic Party and officials like Cardona, who has argued that vouchers are backed by those seeking to undermine public schools.

This summer, as part of a budget deal he cut with legislators, Shapiro vetoed a $100 million statewide voucher proposal he supported. But he said the so-called Pennsylvania Award for Student Success Scholarship Program, or PASS, is “unfinished business.”

Shapiro has said he believes something like the PASS program could work without siphoning funding away from the public school system. But critics like the Philadelphia Federation of Teachers have called vouchers a “misguided push to divert public dollars into private institutions” and “a distraction that diverts us from our collective responsibility to truly invest in public education.”

In February, a Commonwealth Court judge declared Pennsylvania’s school funding system unconstitutional because it creates unjustifiable disparities between low-wealth and high-wealth districts, and ordered the state General Assembly to revise it. As state attorney general, Shapiro wrote a brief in support of the plaintiffs in the funding lawsuit, and his 2022 gubernatorial campaign said he “would not sign a bill that takes funding away from public schools.”

The state’s Basic Education Funding Commission is currently conducting a series of hearings to begin the process of rewriting the formula.

If Shapiro heeds Cardona’s message, it may mean waiting to resurrect the PASS voucher program until the state reworks its school funding formula.

A spokesperson for Shapiro did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Monday.

At the event on Monday — billed as a roundtable discussion about career and technical education with district, workforce, and union leaders — Cardona also said he’s encouraged by the workforce partnerships he’s seeing in the city.

“All the stars are aligning here for an opportunity for the students here in Philadelphia that maybe didn’t exist before,” Cardona said.

Meanwhile, state lawmakers are still considering whether to add $120 million in funding — along with new transparency measures — for Pennsylvania’s two statewide private school choice programs, the Opportunity Scholarship Tax Credit and Educational Improvement Tax Credit. Those programs are currently funded at $340 million together.

State law prohibits the collection of information about the academic achievement of students who benefit from these programs, making it difficult to judge their impact.

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

Annual Philadelphia teacher shuffle known as ‘leveling’ inspires protest

2023-10-04T20:14:16+00:00

It’s October, time for the dreaded practice of “leveling” Philadelphia schools.

Just when students and teachers are settling into their classes for the year, the district takes stock: It determines whether its teacher assignments, based on preregistration and estimates, are in line with the number of students who actually showed up, in each grade and school. For many schools — especially those with elementary and middle grades — there is a mismatch, triggering a musical chairs game of teacher reassignments and transfers.

Some schools gain a teacher or two or even more, but others lose. And for those schools, the result is unwelcome and sometimes traumatic.

One of them is Henry H. Houston Elementary School in Mount Airy, where the administration planned for two fifth grade classes. The school community was excited, because teaching in one of those classrooms was Lya Rodgers, who grew up in the neighborhood and was returning after several years abroad. She specifically sought to teach at Houston.

But only 31 fifth-grade students are enrolled now, below the maximum for a single class allowed under the contract with the Philadelphia Federation of Teachers. The maximum is 30 students for kindergarten through third and 33 for fourth through eighth.

So Houston’s two fifth grade classes of 15 and 16 students — closer to the norm in many suburban districts — will be combined into one, and Rodgers will be going elsewhere, starting Oct. 10. She was given five schools to choose from.

She “got just five days’ notice,” said parent Emily Pugliese. “She’s leaving Friday.”

In all, 59 schools lost teachers this year under leveling, according to figures released by the district, and 88 teachers moved.

Another 45 schools were absolved from any impact, with 93 teachers able to stay despite fewer students showing up in their schools than expected; many of those are criteria-based or magnet schools. And at an additional 50 schools, 66 teacher positions were added because of higher enrollment figures.

At Houston, dozens of parents and other neighborhood residents upset about the loss of Rodgers — and the practice of leveling — gathered after school Wednesday in front of the building to protest.

They held up signs and chanted slogans including “All year, teachers stay here; “Lose leveling, not teachers,” and “Keep Ms Lya.”

“I really want my teacher to stay,” said fifth grader Sarina Hayes. “I feel like she’s my mom. And she’s really funny.”

Parent Christina Jackson, who has fifth grade twins, called leveling “a disruptive process.”

“It feels like teachers are treated like pawns,” Jackson said. “It’s all about numbers, not relationships built with students. It doesn’t seem the district is caring about the real health of our kids.”

It’s “reckless,” she said, to do all this moving “based on a couple of kids over or under a number.” She said if it goes through, she will consider homeschooling.

“My daughter will not do well in a class with way more kids,” she said.

Mary Hoeffel has a daughter in fifth grade at Houston and one in second grade.

Her fifth grader “loves, loves” Rodgers, Hoeffel said Tuesday. “Her homework is so engaging, she loves class discussions, the book they’re reading, and it’s been great from Day 1. And then she found out yesterday that Rodgers would be gone next week.”

For her part, Rodgers left school as usual with other teachers directly to the parking lot via the back door and didn’t answer an email seeking comment.

Leveling is a longstanding practice growing out of the need to make sure schools are adequately and appropriately staffed, but also driven by concerns around equity in teacher distribution and by the need for cost-efficiency in the perennially cash-strapped district.

No one questions the need to add teachers in schools where more students show up than planned for, but taking teachers away after the year begins has long prompted complaints that it destabilizes schools. On occasion, superintendents have suspended the practice of moving teachers out of underenrolled schools.

The process governing which teachers are reassigned when a school must give up a teacher has also been controversial, as it is primarily based on seniority rather than a principal’s best judgment.

This year, though, the district is also facing a teacher shortage. When the school year started, there were close to 400 vacancies. District spokeswoman Marissa Orbanek said that the “fill rate” is still at 96%, meaning that most of those vacancies still exist.

Orbanek acknowledged the importance of consistent access to qualified teachers. “We will continue to refine our processes, including seeking to more accurately project student enrollment at each school and grade level prior to the start of the school year so that mid-year staffing adjustments can be avoided as much as possible,” Orbanek said in a statement.

She said that staff reassignments are continuing through Thursday, so the numbers may change. Superintendent Tony Watlington will provide more information “within the next day or so,” Orbanek said.

Several Houston parents signed on to an anguished letter to Watlington, begging him to reconsider.

“If the School District of Philadelphia is dedicated to trauma-informed practices, why does it continue to engage in the trauma-inducing practice of leveling?” the letter says, calling on district officials to review the practice and “to halt this harm to this wonderful, growing, neighborhood school.”

Houston, which has about 400 students, is in a progressive, politically active, racially integrated part of the city. In recent years, it has made progress in attracting more parents, white and Black, to send their children there instead of to private or charter schools.

The school has as high a proportion of white students now as when it was given extra amenities as part of the district’s voluntary desegregation program, which was in effect from the early 1980s until 2011. The school also has many students whose families applied to attend from outside the neighborhood.

Houston also had started a “differentiation initiative,” in which one grade teacher concentrated on English language arts and social studies, while the other focused on math and science. That project will also be derailed by Rodgers’ reassignment.

Rodgers happened to be the teacher at the school who was lowest in building seniority, so she was the person who needed to move. But sometimes, the teacher who is reassigned is not in the underenrolled grade, which results in more internal shuffling within the school as teachers are moved around to compensate.

The Houston parents’ letter notes that this year’s fourth grade has close to 50 students, so next year’s fifth grade will almost certainly require two teachers.

At the protest, parent Ari Jackson (no relation to Christina) said she had two children at Houston, a fifth grader and a seventh grader, who has been there since kindergarten.

“This is disrupting for a lot of kids,” she said. “And it goes without saying that it’s better to have 15 rather than 30-plus students in a class. There’s more individualization. That’s self- explanatory.”

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.

Roxborough High remembers Nicolas Elizalde, killed one year ago

2023-09-27T21:47:01+00:00

On a strip of ragged grass adjoining the front steps of Roxborough High School, students planted crocuses.

The bulbs, assistant principal Julian Saavedra explained to them, are perennials, meaning they die out but come back every year, bursting out in vibrant colors on patches of ground still waking up from the cold of winter.

The planting happened Wednesday, on the first anniversary of one of the most devastating events in the history of Roxborough High: a brutal shooting mere steps from the school that took the life of 14-year-old Nicolas Elizalde as he walked home from a football scrimmage at the field nearby.

Nicolas was actually a student at nearby Saul High School of Agricultural Science, which shares a football team with Roxborough.

To cope and remember, the 600-student school observed a Day of Peace on the anniversary, seeking to bring additional support to a community that is still traumatized. To start the day, students held a moment of silence. Over the past year, they helped paint a mural on the wall of the school closest to where the shooting occurred. The mural depicts, among other symbols, a football helmet filled with flowers and a large rendering of Nicolas’ jersey number, 62.

“We’re getting through it as a team,” said assistant football coach Marc Skinner. “We stand by each other, we talk to each other. … We put our focus on the field and the game and making sure we do the right thing, and not be a part of any situation that would have us in this type of tragedy again.”

Since the incident, Roxborough has partnered with organizations including Healing Hurt People to work with students and others affected. Police in the 14th District have stepped up patrols. The school has more security guards and many programs addressing students’ emotional needs.

But the pain is still raw.

“We continue to support our children with trauma-informed best practices. We share resources with our teachers, and all of our staff,” said Principal Kristin Williams-Smalley. “And we all have a schoolwide social emotional learning program that we have implemented. … It’s an ongoing issue that our children are dealing with.”

Roxborough High principal Kristin Williams-Smalley speaks to reporters

She said that Roxborough lost another student to gun violence in May.

During the last school year, 199 city students were shot, and 33 of those died, district officials said. Less than three weeks into this school year, five students have been shot, and one died. Philadelphia’s efforts to restrict gun ownership have been blocked by the courts and a state law that bars municipalities from enacting their own gun control measures.

Shortly before the shooting, Mayor Jim Kenney had signed a law that restricted gun possession at public spaces in the city, including parks, recreation centers, and pools, but it was overturned in a court challenge.

When Nicolas was killed, four other teens were wounded by the bullets flying out of an SUV that had been lying in wait near Roxborough High.

Police don’t believe Nicolas was the intended target. One of the shooters jumped out of the car and chased another, older boy down the street, firing at close range before his gun jammed.

Police have arrested four suspects in the killing and are still seeking a fifth person they believe was the main shooter.

This week, Nicolas’ mother, Meredith Elizalde, called on state lawmakers to enact gun reform. Nicolas was her only child, and he died in her arms.

“I want them to get on the front lines and fight for gun sense, because if you’re not, you’re just part of the problem,” Meredith Elizalde said.

Asked about the chances of gun reform, Williams-Smalley sounded weary.

“I’m tired to go to funerals. I’m tired of visiting my colleagues at their schools when something happens to be a support for them. We are all, my colleagues across the city, we are all tired of the violence that is pervasive.”

As the students dispersed after planting the crocuses, Saavedra called after them.

“We’ll water them later on,” he said.

A mural on one wall of Roxborough High in memory of Nicolas Elizalde features Nicolas’ football jersey number, 62.

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 education questions should we ask Philadelphia’s mayoral candidates?

2023-09-27T20:15:42+00:00

In deep-blue Philadelphia, where registered Democrats significantly outnumber Republicans, it can feel like the mayoral race ended with Cherelle Parker’s primary win in May.

But voters do have a choice in the general election this November, and the winner will have the strongest degree of mayoral control over education in the city in decades.

The general election is Tuesday, Nov. 7, and the last day to vote early in person is Tuesday, Oct. 31.

Two candidates are running for mayor: Democrat Cherelle Parker, who is a former City Council member and former member of the Pennsylvania General Assembly, and Republican David Oh, an attorney who also used to be on the council.

The winner will have the power to appoint the city Board of Education’s nine members, who in turn appoint and evaluate the superintendent and monitor the district’s progress related to student achievement.

The current board members’ terms will expire when Mayor Jim Kenney leaves office in January. Whoever steps into the role can opt to keep some, all, or none of the current members.

While Parker has not said whether she would consider replacing any of the current board members, Oh said on his campaign website he favors an elected school board where as many as five of the nine members could be elected by Philadelphians.

The mayor also sets the policy tone and conversation around education in the city. During the lead-up to the primary election, Parker campaigned on a pledge for “year-round school” which, despite lacking details, was quickly picked up by Superintendent Tony Watlington and incorporated into his five-year strategic plan for the district.

We’re building a Chalkbeat voter guide for the election, and we want to know what’s on your mind. Let us know what questions to ask the candidates, and issues to raise with them, using the form below:

If you are having trouble viewing this form, go here.

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

Philadelphia school climate and cafeteria staff threaten to strike if pay demands not met

2023-09-21T22:09:30+00:00

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Philadelphia school food service workers and climate staff say they are “sick and tired” of being underpaid and overworked and are threatening to strike if they aren’t granted a raise.

“We are sick and tired of the unfair treatment. We are sick and tired out of disrespect,” Kiara Coleman, lead organizer of the Unite Here Local 634 union, told a crowd outside of the school district’s headquarters on Thursday during a Board of Education meeting. “Today we are showing the district that we are ready. We’re willing to stand up and fight for what we deserve. We’re going to continue to put them on notice until they get the message.”

At the rally, dozens of members of the union — which represents 1,900 food service and student climate staff employees in the district — demanded higher wages and more flexibility in their work schedules, among other quality of life improvements.

“We are feeding all the kids in Philadelphia and cannot feed our own families,” said Tanya Edmonds, a food service worker at Henry H. Houston Elementary School.

In a Thursday statement, the school district said it “recognizes the central roles” of the employees, and said it is “confident” it can reach an agreement with the union.

The group’s collective bargaining agreement with the school district expires on Sept. 30. Earlier this month, the union’s members “unanimously authorized” a strike to be called “if and when” union leadership “deems it appropriate.” The workers are not yet on strike.

A work stoppage by the union members could throw Philadelphia’s schools into disarray. Among other things, climate and cafeteria staff maintain close relationships with students and provide some of the most impactful care for kids struggling with food insecurity and mental health challenges.

“We are like mothers and fathers to the children while they’re here,” a union statement from Sept. 9 said. “We see first-hand what kids deal with at home and in their communities. … We wipe noses and give hugs. We have listening ears when they need someone to talk to.”

Cafeteria workers and climate staff are among the lowest-paid school employees, according to Coleman. Union representatives said most of their members are paid $15.50 an hour.

According to hiring, resignation, and termination data posted by the school board and analyzed by Chalkbeat, food service workers and school climate staff make up a large portion of the board-approved terminations and resignations in the district.

In district employment reports covering a period from September 2022 to June 2023, the district fired 19 climate workers and 4 food service workers. Those firings made up 34% of all terminations in the district. In that same time period, 194 climate workers and 91 food service workers resigned, making up 20% of the 1,394 district workers who resigned.

Several elected officials attended Thursday’s union rally, including state Sen. Nikil Saval, state Reps. Liz Fiedler and Jordan Harris, and City Councilmember Kendra Brooks. They urged the district to increase the workers’ wages.

“We’re going to stand with you as long as it takes to not just give you praise, but to get you that damn raise,” Harris said.

Correction: Sept. 22, 2023: A previous version of this story included comments from Board of Education Vice President Mallory Fix-Lopez that were not directed at the union’s Thursday rally, but at an earlier rally in Harrisburg about Philadelphia school funding.

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

Remembering Constance Clayton, Philadelphia’s trailblazing former superintendent

2023-09-19T17:16:25+00:00

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Constance Clayton’s legacy as Philadelphia schools’ first Black and first female superintendent is deep and still being felt today. In an era when few Black women held positions of power, Clayton took a school district mired in patronage, labor strife, and division, and put the focus back on providing all students with a quality education.

Clayton, a Philadelphia native and the district’s last homegrown superintendent, died on Monday at the age of 89. She ran the district, then the nation’s fifth largest, from 1982 to 1993, during an era when the average tenure for urban school leaders was three years

Her career and achievements were an inspiration to many – women and Black women in particular. As news of her death spread, tributes came in from city and state leaders, educators, friends, and former adversaries.

“She is an icon,” said Robin Cooper, president of the Commonwealth Association of School Administrators, which represents principals.

City Council member Katherine Gilmore Richardson said in a statement that Clayton “was an inspiration to young girls everywhere. It was her commitment to education that in part inspired me to become a teacher.”

Democratic mayoral nominee Cherelle Parker, poised to become the city’s first female mayor, said in a statement: “It was with Philly in her blood that she raised the expectations for Black and Brown students and students from low and moderate income communities. She set out to prove that race and socio-economic status would not define the chance of a students’ success. Her name is synonymous with leadership that is the model for the generations that came behind her.”

Former Philadelphia mayor and Pennsylvania governor Ed Rendell said Clayton literally led the city into a new era as “the first superintendent who challenged the rest of us in the city” to believe that the public school system could educate children as well as any private school.

Superintendent Tony Watlington said he met with her frequently for advice and that she had called his office as recently as last Friday to set up a lunch so she could advise him on what to do in his second year leading the district.

“On the last Christmas holiday, she was the first person I talked to,” said Watlington. “And that says something about her and the extent to which she wanted to make sure she stayed engaged.”

In her nearly 12 years as superintendent, Clayton brought labor peace after a decade of almost constant strikes, stabilized the district’s budget, and spearheaded a popular standardized curriculum, declaring that it would benefit the many city students who moved frequently from school to school.

Regal in bearing and no-nonsense in her leadership style, Clayton did not suffer fools gladly and would shut out people she perceived as critical of her leadership. But while she alienated some, she left no doubt among anyone that her concern was for the city’s children.

Veteran district educator Karen Kolsky remembers clearly that Clayton’s mantra was “Every school’s a good school,” a simple statement that set a tone for eager young teachers who could be intimidated by the district’s size and diversity.

“I remember that like I know my name,” said Kolsky, who retired recently after 38 years in the district. “That spoke volumes to me as a new teacher. I remember it so vividly because she really meant it.

“She has such presence. She was the School District of Philadelphia.”

Hailed as “best” recent superintendent

Clayton also brought a desperately needed stability to a system often in turmoil. Before her tenure, district-union relations were toxic. Through the 1970s and early ‘80s, the Philadelphia Federation of Teachers went on strike almost yearly, striking for 20 days in 1980 and 50 days in 1981.

But during Clayton’s 11-year tenure, while union-district relations were hardly cordial, there were no strikes.

Though they were on opposite sides of the negotiating table, Jerry Jordan, now the president of the PFT, described Clayton as a “mentor, a teacher, a friend” and, in his opinion, the best recent superintendent the district has had.

“She gave me advice on a number of occasions,” he said. “She helped to teach me how to do my job working for the union.”

Jordan said teachers loved her standardized curriculum. “Long after Dr. Clayton left, I would visit schools and classrooms and teachers would show me they were still using [it]” because it told them “what they needed to teach, not the how. They liked having the freedom to be creative.”

As to her manner and style of leadership, Jordan said with a chuckle, “She wasn’t a pushover, but she was respectful. She mentored so many people in the school district, and all she wanted to know was that you were concerned and cared about kids.”

Former mayor and City Council member Michael Nutter agrees with Jordan that Clayton “was the greatest Philadelphia school superintendent in modern history.

“She cared passionately about children,” Nutter said. “She always asked the question, ‘is this in the best interest of our children? You just had to appreciate that.”

While “some people adored her and some had different feelings,” Nutter added, Clayton managed to avoid teacher strikes “and set a national standard” for school leadership.

Board of Education president Reginald Streater, who graduated from Germantown High in the early 2000s, said he “was a direct beneficiary” of the work Clayton did to improve the district, especially in helping to create smaller themed academies in the neighborhood high schools. The best way to honor her memory, he said, is to work toward “ensuring that all students are given access to the lifelong tools that we all know they need to navigate this world and toward their dreams.”

Longtime education advocate, policy analyst, and frequent district critic Debra Weiner described Clayton’s superintendency “as a golden age. What preceded her was teacher strikes every two years, a gigantic exodus of kids from the district, constant deficits, and no standard curriculum.”

But Clayton prioritized working with a less politicized Board of Education “to bring more transparency” to decision-making, said Weiner, who was one of the victims of Clayton’s legendary cold shoulder after she made one remark the superintendent didn’t like.

“Sure, she had a thin skin,” Weiner said. “But you have to remember, she was a Black woman. Black women never got anywhere at that time. She went to an all-Black school (Dunbar elementary) herself. She came from a single parent family. When she went to Girls High, it was full of the white elite. I can talk about how she was thin-skinned, but also say, where were the Black women in power in the 80s? They didn’t exist. So it’s very easy to understand why she had those kinds of shortcomings.”

The record shows, Weiner said, that “between what she inherited and what she bequeathed, there was a big change. It was key in giving the school district a lot of credibility that it had lacked as long as anyone could remember.“

Clayton “came in after a series of strikes and budget crises, and she appointed a very capable team,” said Christopher McGinley, a former Board of Education member who started as a teacher when Clayton was superintendent and went on to become a superintendent himself in two suburban districts. “They had a work ethic second to none.”

Most notably, Clayton did not play the political patronage game with local politicians, which inspired anger on the part of some, and admiration from others.

As far as hiring, “my position and questions became ‘what are their competencies, what are their qualifications, what are their experiences, what do they know about children,’” she told scholar Camika Royal in a 2011 interview for her dissertation. “Well, as I said to you before, it became Don’t ask Connie Clayton for anything, because she will not give it to you. I wanted it that way. I was very clear about why it should be that way. We were not a feeding trough for people. The School District is for children.”

Constance Elaine Clayton was born in 1933 (she would never confirm her age while in public life). Raised by her mother and maternal grandmother in Philadelphia, she attended Dunbar Elementary School and Girls High, Temple University, and the University of Pennsylvania, where she earned a doctorate in education. She subsequently was given many honorary degrees.

Clayton began her career as a fourth grade teacher at the Harrison Elementary School in North Philadelphia in 1955. She quickly rose through the ranks, and in the 1960s, wrote a social studies curriculum for elementary grades and also established an African American studies program for all age levels – efforts that eventually contributed to Philadelphia becoming the first school district in the nation to mandate, in 2006, that all students take an African American history course in order to graduate.

Clayton was also a visionary in recognizing early on the importance of preschool to children’s brain development. As associate superintendent for Early Childhood Education, her last position before being named to lead the district, she expanded the district’s role in pre-K through a variety of programs that still exist.

She championed the arts and promoted the teaching of culturally-relevant curriculum in general “that children could see themselves in,” said Howard Stevenson, who holds the Constance E. Clayton chair at the University of Pennsylvania’s Graduate School of Education.

“She was not afraid of new ideas,” he said.

Superintendent took on mandate to desegregate city schools

On the day she was installed as school superintendent in October 1982 – hired by a less politically beholden school board appointed by former Mayor Bill Green in an effort to get past the patronage and divisions that dominated the district before then – Clayton made her intentions clear. At the time, Irish, Italian, Jewish, and Black educators had distinct affinity groups that kept tabs on the distribution of leadership positions and school assignments.

“I hope all of us will commit ourselves to the proposition that all children can learn, all children can achieve, and all children deserve to be educated to the maximum of their abilities,” Clayton said.

At the time, the district was struggling to deal with an order from the Pennsylvania Human Relations Commission, dating back to 1970, to desegregate its schools. There were many all-white schools, especially in the Northeast, reflecting neighborhood demographics but also district decisions regarding how school district catchment areas were drawn. The PHRC wanted mandatory busing but, mindful of the kind of violence and upheaval school desegregation caused in cities like Boston, Clayton – like her white predecessors – rejected that option.

Unlike them, she and her chief of staff, law professor Ralph Smith, came up with a voluntary desegregation plan that resulted in the busing of thousands of children, more than 14,000 at its peak and mostly Black, to predominantly white schools, primarily in the Northeast. The program also provided incentives, such as free after-school programs, to schools in integrated communities where the school enrollment was predominantly Black, to attract more white students to them.

“I did not accept the job of superintendent to preside over a segregated school system. And I will not do so,” she wrote in a 1983 letter to the school board reported by The Philadelphia Inquirer.

While the voluntary plan did increase enrollment diversity at many schools, over time, the busing waned, and the focus shifted to providing more resources to schools that were predominantly low-income and Black. The PHRC case was settled in 2009.

Once in talks to become chancellor of the New York City school system, Clayton withdrew her name, writing in a 1987 telegram to the then-president of the New York Board of Education published in The Philadelphia Inquirer, “I have an unfinished agenda in Philadelphia … Now is not the time to leave.”

But the year 1988 for her had both triumph and missteps: The PFT signed a landmark contract, preserving labor peace and including some important reforms. But in a presentation to the school board in August – in the context of explaining her priorities in managing a budget crunch – she said: “There are those among us who will always choose in favor of the historically privileged. That is a luxury that the school district, this city and our society, can ill afford. When compelled to choose we should and we must choose in favor of those children most at risk and most in need even if they are not the loudest or the most well connected.”

She also closed five day care centers in the Northeast to spare some in poorer neighborhoods.

Soon, she faced calls for her resignation, mostly from residents and officeholders from the Northeast, a largely white but working-class community, where many were offended at the notion of who she considered “privileged.”

She persevered, although the last years of her tenure were marked by struggles to keep the district’s budget balanced, stubbornly flat achievement scores, the birth of the charter movement, and the increasingly volatile politics around education and power struggles on the school board. Her resignation in 1993 was unexpected and abrupt.

She told Royal in 2010: “I’d been there 11 years. And I did, I took early retirement. You know, you get to a point where you question whether you’re still effective. It was time.”

After her retirement she took an interest in artificial intelligence and its potential role in children’s education, said Stevenson of Penn GSE. She also became a patron of the arts.

“She was one of the largest holders of Black art in the city,” and also challenged the Philadelphia Museum of Art, as a board member there, “to include folks of color as leaders,” he said. She founded the museum’s African American Collections Committee.

She was also a philanthropist, he said, often giving money for scholarships and other purposes, but not wanting it publicized.

In retirement, Clayton also opened an antiques and notions store in Chestnut Hill with one of her former district colleagues, Lee Scott. She lived for decades in a sprawling stone house in Mount Airy with her mother, who died in 2004.

“She didn’t achieve everything she wanted to achieve, but she began the first wave of people taking education seriously and understanding kids of all ages and backgrounds can learn,” said Rendell. “We were all lucky to have her in Philadelphia.”

Dale Mezzacappa is a senior writer for Chalkbeat Philadelphia, where she covers K-12 schools and early childhood education in Philadelphia. She was the Philadelphia Inquirer education writer during much of Constance Clayton’s superintendency. Contact Dale at dmezzacappa@chalkbeat.org.

Pennsylvania’s school funding commission starts work on a new funding formula

2023-09-14T22:27:42+00:00

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On the heat-soaked steps of the Philadelphia School District building Thursday, education advocates, teachers, and elected officials sought help for city students forced to learn in underfunded schools.

“Children are in crisis,” said Maritza Guridy, deputy director of parent power and outreach at the National Parents Union. They’re “struggling to survive.”

Behind those speaking, 12 legislators and staff entered the front doors preparing to sit for a three-hour hearing of the state’s Basic Education Funding Commission. The newly formed group is tasked with overhauling one of the most inequitable education funding systems in the nation after a court ruled the current system is unconstitutional.

The 15-member commission launched a series of hearings across the state this week to get feedback on how much to invest in education and how to distribute the aid.

“We need to listen to everyone and we may like what we hear, we may not like what we hear,” Sen. Kristin Philipps-Hill, a Republican from York, said in her opening remarks, adding that lawmakers must work in a bipartisan fashion to make sure student needs are met.

Pennsylvania is embarking on this long overdue — and constitutionally mandated — effort to overhaul the school funding formula because the current one is “shortchanging” students across the state, including those in Philadelphia, school board Vice President Mallory Fix-Lopez said to the group rallying outside the hearing.

Generations of underfunding means students in the city — who are predominantly Black, brown, and from low-income families — have had larger class sizes, less qualified and experienced teachers, older and often unsafe buildings, and fewer extracurricular opportunities compared to students in wealthier Pennsylvania districts.

Outside on Thursday, Philadelphians decried how long it’s taken to get here and the toll it’s exacted on students.

“Aren’t we tired of just talking about it?” Fix-Lopez asked. “I’m ready for change.”

The commission will deliver a report to Gov. Josh Shapiro by the end of November and produce a new formula in time for next spring’s budget negotiations. If lawmakers’ proposed formula doesn’t measure up, the state could find itself back in court, said Michael Churchill of the Public Interest Law Center, one of the groups representing the plaintiffs in the funding lawsuit.

Philadelphia Superintendent Tony Watlington, now in his second year in office, has crafted an ambitious five-year strategic plan for the district but has said he lacks the funding to carry it out.

“The Pennsylvania public school funding system has inadequately and inequitably funded low-wealth school districts for decades,” Watlington told the commission. “The funding system systematically harmed the very districts that need the most resources … those districts who serve students with the greatest needs.”

What the commission will do

Beyond trying to create a formula that is more fair, the commission must deal with the question of adequacy, or how much the state should be contributing to education so all students get a quality education. Pennsylvania now ranks 45th among states in the proportion of state versus local funding, providing only 38% of the total, compared to a national average of 47%.

A new formula and more money for Philadelphia schools will mean the difference between cutting programs and expanding access to things like high-dosage tutoring, algebra courses, and extracurriculars.

But it’s going to be costly. Penn State professor Matthew Kelly told the commission during an earlier hearing on Tuesday the state needs to spend an extra $6.2 billion each year to adequately fund education for all students. Philadelphia falls short by nearly $8,000 per student, Kelly found.

And that estimate doesn’t include facilities costs to manage environmental hazards like asbestos and broken or inadequate air conditioning. Watlington told the commission that the district was forced to close more than 80 buildings early each day during the first week of school because they lack no air conditioning. To fully modernize and repair the district’s infrastructure would cost $7.9 billion, he said, citing a 2017 study.

The Basic Education Funding Commission is tasked with overhauling one of the most inequitable education funding systems in the nation.

How Philly measures up

Philadelphia is not the lowest funded among Pennsylvania’s 500 districts. In fact, it is in the top half, ranking 232nd in per student revenue.

Other districts, large and small, have even larger “adequacy” gaps, including Allentown, Reading, Panther Valley, and Shenandoah. Kelly found that 412 of the state’s 500 districts fall short of what’s necessary to provide all students with a quality education.

“There is a cross section of districts that are dramatically underfunded,” Dan Urevick-Ackelsberg, senior attorney with the Public Interest Law Center, said in an interview.

And while, statewide, there are more white students in underfunded districts, “kids of color are dramatically concentrated in them,” he said.

At the hearing, Jerry Jordan, president of the Philadelphia Federation of Teachers, and Ashley Cocca, a counselor at Bache-Martin elementary school, talked about the trauma that many students face.

“Gun violence, drug presence, poverty levels, housing inadequacies, domestic violence, underemployment, tragic loss….inconsistent continuity of care,” Cocca said, choking up. Jordan said Philadelphia students need as much, if not more, than counterparts in wealthier areas.

A bipartisan solution will be needed

Many of the state’s poorest districts are rural, and largely white, and educate the constituents of many Republican lawmakers who have resisted the plea for billions more in state money for education. In some of these districts, tax rates are sky high, but they can’t raise enough funds because property values are low and taxable industries are scant.

Over the years, Republicans have protested that there is no correlation between money and achievement, and argued at their funding trial that the state’s obligation ended with assuring that the most basic needs were met – essentially, providing buildings, classrooms, and teachers.

Sen. David Argall, at the commission’s hearing on Tuesday, said the state legislature has voted for “significant spending increases” in the past, but said “we haven’t seen the results that many had hoped for.”

Kelly told Argall, “the research is clear and unambiguous” on this front: “Increased spending does increase outcomes” for students.

In resisting the lawsuit, Republicans also argued that legislators, not judges, are charged with determining fair and adequate funding levels for schools.

But, in a February ruling that followed four months of testimony, Commonwealth Court Judge Renée Cohn Jubelirer firmly rejected that reasoning, saying in a 786-page opinion that the current system so severely shortchanges many students that she was compelled to intervene.

Republican legislative leaders decided not to appeal her decision, instead initiating a process to overhaul the funding system.

How school funding currently works

The biggest component of state school aid comes through the basic education line item in the budget, which is now $7.8 billion. In an effort to direct a higher proportion to the neediest districts in lieu of a formula overhaul, the legislature set aside millions in so-called “level up” funding directed toward the 100 poorest districts; this year, the amount is $100 million. That funding is still held up in a lingering legislative standoff.

The current formula — most recently reworked in 2016 — weights such factors as the number of students in low-income households, poverty concentration, the prevalence of students with disabilities and English learners, and a district’s local wealth and taxing capacity.

But the formula has not significantly reduced disparities in spending among districts because legislators at the time also introduced a “hold harmless” clause that guarantees that no district gets less than it did before, even if its enrollment drops. Lawmakers decided to apply the new formula only to a new aid, not to all aid.

This meant most of the funding is distributed based on student demographics from many years ago

While Jubelirer ruled the current formula to be unconstitutional, she did not prescribe a solution.

This is where the new education funding commission comes in.

After the listening tour, the commission will present a series of recommendations to Shapiro, who will then work to reach a deal with lawmakers on a new formula, likely to be enacted through the state budget process.

But that will take months, and some say Philadelphia students can’t wait much longer.

“We must fix it immediately,” State Sen. Vincent Hughes, a Democrat representing Philadelphia, said. “We have waited too long, generations have suffered.”

Correction: This story has been corrected to reflect the status of the distribution of “level up” funding and Dan Urevick-Ackelsberg’s role with the Public Interest Law Center.

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

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

Philadelphia teachers’ Outward Bound canoe expedition helps build them bonds and skills

2023-09-11T11:00:00+00:00

In the waning days of summer, a group of Philadelphia teachers gathered on the banks of the Delaware River for an exercise in teamwork — and geometry.

Their assignment: Determine the width of the river they would be canoeing on for a week.

The catch: They’d have no tools or instruments to measure it with.

“I gave them a few hints, because they’re not actually in 10th grade geometry class,” said Bridget Donegan, who teaches math and science at Swenson Arts and Technology High School in Northeast Philadelphia — nearly 90 miles away from their campsite in the Delaware Water Gap — and led the exercise.

Donegan and her fellow educators came from schools across the city, from traditional district classrooms to vocational technical high schools, to participate in a weeklong educator expedition program through Philadelphia’s Outward Bound School.

The days were for outdoor adventures, such as canoeing and rock climbing. In the evenings, they reflected, gathering around a campfire to share their insecurities and hopes for the coming school year.

The program is intended to foster teamwork and forge stronger community bonds among teachers working in the city, in addition to developing “experiential education skills” that they can take back to their classrooms, according to Philadelphia Outward Bound School spokesperson Chris Richter.

(Left) Jennifer Raymond, POBS scholarship and recruitment manager, helps build a fire.

On this trip, Donegan and her peers would be both students and teachers — following safety guidelines from their Outward Bound facilitators, but also leading small group lessons about topics they’re passionate about. They instructed each other in American sign language, deep breathing techniques, yoga, and education-specific lessons on classroom techniques like “mutual learning” and “consultancy protocol.”

And, in Donegan’s case, high school geometry.

POBS, as it’s known, also offers similar trips for students, district staff, and members of the public. Outward Bound’s programs have long been known for giving city dwellers the chance to camp, hike, and canoe and as a way to build practical skills like knot-tying.

But the programs have taken on a new weight after a series of difficult years for Philadelphia students and their teachers. Rising rates of gun violence, sudden school closures due to asbestos, lingering COVID traumas and environmental crises have exacted an emotional and academic toll on school communities.

And the school district is looking to POBS as a potential aid.

“In Philadelphia, our district is tremendously impacted by trauma,” said Abigail Gray, deputy chief of the district office of school climate and culture. “With the increase in gun violence that we’ve seen in the city in the last few years, we need ways to get away from that and take a break and have positive experiences and have fun, and that goes for certainly our students, but also for our staff. They are confronted with really difficult stuff, day in and day out, all day long.”

Cheers follow a tough climb

Gray said she has taken her team of 75 district staffers out to complete rope courses and participate in team building activities designed by POBS to merge professional development with practical skills.

No two POBS trips are identical. The educator expedition course is six nights and seven days of canoeing on the Delaware River. Some student trips are shorter, some are daylong experiences, and others are only a few hours.

The educator course is fully paid for by POBS, but teachers are expected to contribute a $250 application fee, according to Richter.

A staple activity of the expeditions is the “goal pole” where participants hold onto a series of ropes and support one usually nervous person at a time as they clamber up a 30-foot telephone pole. After reaching the very top, they are encouraged to jump away from the pole and grasp for a thick woven rope hanging above all of their teammates.

Once a teammate leaps, those holding the ropes gently lower them to the ground, cheering words of encouragement and whooping with pride when they touch down.

No one has to jump, and in fact, some feel the challenge without touching the top of the pole. No matter how far a teammate climbs, their colleagues are generous with their hugs and reassurances.

What’s important is not how far up the pole you made it, the educators explained. It’s the fact that you tried and trusted your colleagues to keep you from falling.

“We cannot do our work if we don’t have good relationships with one another and good communication with one another, and if we don’t have good communication and relationships with the schools that we support,” Gray said of her central office staff.

(From left) Educators Amelia Wisniewski-Barker, Alex Volin Avelin, and instructor Jennifer Raymond watch their teammate climb the “goal pole.”

Unexpected moments help build community

The educators first met their fellow participants at the Discovery Center in Philadelphia’s Fairmount Park where they went through what POBS staff call a “duffle shuffle.” All of their clothes, backpacks, and camping gear were brought out for inspection, and anything lacking was provided from POBS’ store of water bottles, rain pants, sleeping bags, wool socks, and other camping necessities.

The crew then set off in a van for their expedition. They camped in the wilderness at different sites along the river bank each night, sleeping in tents together and operating as a “crew, not passengers,” as Richter put it. That meant distributing roles and responsibilities throughout the week, including “leader of the day,” navigator, chef, cleanup crew, medic, environmentalist, and journalist — in charge of the camp camera.

For Glennis Johnson, a social studies and learning support teacher at Swenson, the practice of teaching and learning in a group of interested peers was an important — and refreshing — experience.

She said she also learned a lot from the Outward Bound instructors guiding them, Kim Glodek and Jennifer Raymond, who are educators in their own right.

Johnson said the instructors’ willingness to leave them on the river bank during “critical moments to figure it out,” helped her get a better sense of what her students may be feeling during challenging lessons.

“That’s something that I need to work on as a teacher,” Johnson said. “Creative struggle is so important … meeting people where they are …. letting them show you their good positive sides.”

Jennel Johnson (no relation to Glennis) is the finance administrator for POBS and a Philly native who once taught undergraduate accounting. She went on her first big overnight trip with the classroom educators.

At one point early in the trip, their boat hit rocky waters and tipped over on the river. Luckily, Johnson said, it happened the day after their instructors told them just what to do in such a situation.

“Everyone jumped right in, and did what we practiced the day before,” Jennel Johnson said.

Sometimes, she said, it was not the planned team-building activities but rather the unexpected moments that brought them closer together.

“We bonded over wet clothes and Swedish Fish,” she said.

Raymond, one of the POBS instructors and the scholarship and recruitment manager for the organization, said it’s always a powerful experience watching a group of strangers learn to trust each other — essentially with their lives — over the course of an expedition.

She said listening to the educators in their downtime talk through their emotions and share resources and ideas for classroom support was inspiring. She hopes it will influence the way she works with students in the future.

But even as the teachers helped each other navigate social and emotional struggles, Raymond said part of the trip is also allowing them to act like kids again.

“Even though they were adults, they were like high school teenagers. You know, you have to say, ‘Hey, it’s time to go. It’s time to wake up,’” Raymond said. “Being out there took them back to that place.”

The group runs safety scenarios to make sure they are prepared if something goes wrong.

How the program works in Philly

The POBS network launched 30 years ago with the goal of giving Philadelphia students leadership skills and improving their conflict resolution abilities. It’s part of a national network of 10 Outward Bound schools in the U.S

Maurice West, a climate manager at W.D. Kelley School, said every year the school brings students to POBS in the hopes of shoring up their leadership abilities and socialization skills, and giving them an opportunity to ditch their phones and talk to one another.

“This is the best thing ever for our children,” West said. “They learn conflict resolution skills … It’s in the city but it’s out of the city.”

Nancy Goldenberg, who was POBS chairperson in 1993 when the first expedition set off, said at the time that the program was “meant to become integrated into each school’s basic curriculum and ultimately, become an integral part of school reform and improvement underway in the Philadelphia public school system.”

POBS leads 5-day canoe or backpacking expedition courses with middle school and high school students during the fall and spring seasons, similar to what the educators experienced. But its vision of incorporating these trips into each school’s curriculum hasn’t materialized.

In 2022, POBS served 40 district middle and high schools and 2,978 students at those schools. It also worked with four charter schools and their 1,104 students, according to Richter.

In 2023, Richter said, POBS has scheduled trips and outings through November and is expected to serve 42 district schools and around the same number of students as the previous year.

That’s a small fraction of the 177,941 district and charter school students in the city, but Richter and Glodek, the POBS director of education and partnerships, said they are looking to expand.

One impetus for that is what program leaders see as the potential to make a difference in students’ mental health.

To study the impact of their programs, POBS administered two versions of a survey to 347 participating students between January and November 2022. The survey asked students to rate their perception of themselves on 12 social-emotional skills, before and after they went on an expedition: assertiveness, emotion control, empathy, learning interest, perseverance, and teamwork, group relationships, physical confidence, responsibility, self-awareness, self-regulation, and staff and student relationships.

Preliminary results indicated that after a POBS trip, students reported statistically significant positive change in all but one of those areas: “emotion control.”

But some of the effects aren’t measurable by a survey.

Chalkbeat shadowed some of the students who took POBS trips with their schools in late May.

Mykina Simmons waited anxiously at the Discovery Center in Fairmount Park to hug her daughter Monae Simmons, an eighth grader at W.D. Kelley school who was returning from a POBS expedition with her classmates.

“I was living vicariously through her,” Simmons said. “The closest thing I’ve ever had to this trip was when my dad pitched us a tent in the backyard,” she said.

Simmons was also a student at W.D. Kelley, and she said she wants all four of her kids to have the outdoor experience she never had.

“S’mores, beans in the pot … stuff you see in the movies.” Simmons said.

Bringing the backwoods lessons to the classroom

While there’s no survey data on the educators’ experiences, many who went on the recent expedition said they’re excited to bring the lessons they learned to their classrooms.

Alex Volin Avelin, who taught in the Philadelphia school district for 22 years and now works for the district as a “consulting teacher” helping coach new educators said she did the educator course for the first time nine years ago. At that time, she said she was excited to hike and canoe and experience the outdoors. She said she didn’t realize how much emotional processing and team building would be involved.

“I was super impatient with it,” Volin Avelin said.

The educator expedition course is seven days of canoeing on the Delaware River through the Delaware Water Gap National Recreation Area.

For this trip, she said, she was determined to open up to her fellow crew members, but also to take in the techniques Raymond and Glodek were employing to coach the educators and bring those to her work with first time classroom teachers.

Johnson, the finance administrator for POBS, said she’s eager to share what she learned with her teenage nieces and nephews in the city.

“They’re under so much pressure,” Johnson said, from the gun violence and the distractions of social media. She sees POBS as something that could “take them away from that every day, give them something to do that’s positive.”

“There’s so much more world to explore,” Johnson said. “Even if it’s just two to three hours away from your neighborhood.”

The width of the river: ‘They figured that out’

At the Delaware Water Gap, where the river carves through a densely forested ridge, Donegan’s geometry lesson was in session.

Ultimately, there are a couple of ways to solve the measurement problem, Donegan said. But the way the educators figured it out was to stand somewhere on the riverbank, look directly across the river and pick an object to focus on. Then they walked along the bank until that object looked like it was at a 45-degree angle from them.

“If you do that, then you have essentially a right triangle with two legs that are the same length,” Donegan said.

In other words, an isosceles right triangle, a concept she’s trying to teach to her 10th grade geometry students.

Without instruments to check their work, they relied on their calculations — and the guidance of their math teacher. They concluded the river was around 225 feet across.

“Collectively, they figured that out, and they taught each other, which is 100% what I want to happen in my classroom,” Donegan said. “Occasionally if I’m very, very lucky, it does happen.”

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.

Philadelphia updates test score and grade standards for many selective admissions schools

2023-08-31T22:52:40+00:00

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Philadelphia posted its revised selective schools admissions process Thursday for the 2024-25 school year that’s meant to improve a controversial lottery system and provide more access to students from all areas of the city.

One of the biggest changes involves state test scores. Instead of using a student’s most recent state test scores in English language arts and math to determine eligibility for the top seven highly selective schools, the district will consider a student’s best score from a two-year period. And for all but the top seven schools and programs, a student can score as low as the 50th percentile on one of those two exams and still be eligible for admission.

Attendance requirements have also been relaxed at 15 of the 22 selective schools and programs. Starting for admissions in the 2024-25 academic year, students need to have a minimum attendance record of at least 90% of school days, which means 18 or fewer unexcused absences. But at the top seven schools, the attendance cutoff remains nine or fewer unexcused absences, or 95% attendance.

Through lowering the test-score cutoffs and other changes, including holding sessions around the city where families can get assistance in applying, the district is seeking to provide more access to the most selective schools to qualified students from historically underrepresented ZIP codes, which are mostly in lower-income areas of North and West Philadelphia.

The changes follow significant backlash earlier this year to the lottery system for selective admissions schools that the district adopted in 2021 and went into effect for the 2022-23 school year. Hundreds of spots at some criteria-based schools went unfilled, at least initially, because students who did not get into any of their preferred selective schools through the lottery did not have alternatives under that process. A survey of students, staff, and others concerning the new system found that just one in five liked it.

The lottery system did increase Black and Hispanic enrollment in the city’s top public schools in the last school year, according to a Chalkbeat analysis.

The district announced changes to the lottery system in early August, although the information released by the district Thursday updates its website and provides more details about them. Preferences for students from underrepresented neighborhoods will continue, while the district is also working to improve access to magnet schools for English language learners and students with disabilities.

Under the revised system, Central and Masterman high schools continue to have the most stringent requirements. In order to be accepted, students must have all As and Bs, scores in the 80th percentile or above in English language arts and math on the state standardized tests commonly known as the PSSA, and 95% attendance.

As recently as 2020, the test-score cutoff for Central, Masterman, and Academy @Palumbo was the 88th percentile. But in the wake of the pandemic, the district lowered that threshold for Central and Masterman to the 80th percentile. It is keeping that lower benchmark.

For the next tier of five schools, which includes Palumbo, the requirements for 95% attendance and all As and Bs remain. But the PSSA cutoff has been reduced to the 65th percentile. Besides Palumbo, those schools are:

Carver High School of Engineering and Science.
Parkway Center City Middle College.
The aerospace program at Northeast High.
The International Baccalaureate (IB) magnet program at Northeast High.

In the next tier, students need to score at or above the 50th percentile on the PSSA and are allowed one C. They must also have 90% attendance. The schools in this tier are:

Science Leadership Academy (SLA).
SLA-Beeber.
Girard Academic Music Program (GAMP).
Creative and Performing Arts High School (CAPA).
Bodine High School of International Affairs.
The IB program at George Washington High School.

In another tier, the requirements are identical, except students are allowed A, B, and two C grades. Schools in this tier include Girls High, Franklin Learning Center, and Hill-Freedman.

And in the final tier, students are allowed A, B, and C grades. Schools in this tier include Motivation High, Parkway West, and Saul High School of Agricultural Science.

The full list of selective schools and their admissions standards is here.

Pre-algebra, space at certain schools remain concerns

The changes mean different things at different schools.

At CAPA, for instance, the test scores cutoff was the 80th percentile before the pandemic. Before the revised lottery system, SLA and SLA-Beeber, which take a project-based approach to learning, had not imposed a test-score cutoff; they required only proficiency on the PSSAs as well as a project presentation. SLA and SLA-Beeber will continue to require projects; GAMP and CAPA require auditions and will continue to do so.

Masterman will maintain its requirement that its students take pre-algebra before entering the ninth grade. But that course is offered in only 35 schools with eighth grades, far from all the district’s K-8 and middle schools, and is less common in schools serving low-income areas.

The district says it is working on expanding access to pre-algebra.

Under the updated process, students who otherwise qualify but have no luck in the lottery process and are waitlisted at all their five schools of choice can still receive offers from other selective schools not on their list that have spaces available.

Before the lottery system, principals at the selective schools could pick and choose from among all qualified applicants. They often chose those with the best test scores, especially at Masterman, making its effective cutoff score much higher than 88%. Concern about an underrepresentation of Black and Latino students at Masterman and Central especially was a major reason for moving to a lottery system.

The district previously announced that starting in 2024-25, students in selective middle schools that also have high schools — Carver, Masterman, GAMP, Hill Freedman and SLA-Beeber — will not require eighth graders to reapply. If they qualify based on grades and test scores, they will be offered admission.

This policy could have a particularly big impact on Masterman, where the high school grades are about half the size of those in the middle school.

The school selection process for students in pre-K through 11th grade opens on Friday, Sept. 15 at 4 p.m. and will close on Oct. 27 at 11:59 p.m, according to the district. The district will be staffing “Application Assistance Labs” at schools across the city for families to ask questions and get help with applications.

District spokespeople said they are also in the process of setting up a dedicated school selection call center by Sept. 8 that will allow families to call in with questions about the process.

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.

Weapons screening, cameras, and drones: What Philadelphia is doing to make students safer

2023-08-30T21:13:59+00:00

In an effort to save students’ lives and restore parents’ trust, Philadelphia is expanding the district’s use of weapons screening equipment in middle schools, updating surveillance cameras, and piloting drones to watch over school grounds.

The district is also extending its Safe Path program to nine new schools. The program pays adults in neighborhoods to patrol areas where students walk to and from school.

“Despite all of the things that you’ve seen across the city, and we’ve had some tragedy, our schools are the safest places for our kids to be,” Kevin Bethel, the district’s chief of school safety, said in a Wednesday press conference. “It is our job as adults to make sure we make it as safe as possible for them.”

Though law enforcement officials have said shootings in the city have declined this year compared to the same period in the prior year, gun violence has become an inescapable reality for students and young people in Philadelphia.

Nearly 200 students were shot during the previous school year and 33 young people died, according to the district. Eighteen guns were recovered from students in the district last school year, Bethel said.

This year, Bethel, outgoing Mayor Jim Kenney, Philadelphia Superintendent Tony Watlington, and Board of Education President Reginald Streater said they’ll do “everything we can” to ensure student safety. But Kenney said because guns are so easy to come by in Pennsylvania, safety challenges will likely persist this school year.

“Until we get our arms around this commonwealth’s issues relative to the availability of guns we’re still going to be running uphill,” Kenney said. “Everybody seems to have a gun.”

The city’s young people seem to share that sentiment. At a gun violence roundtable in early August, one student told Chalkbeat she felt like “no matter how hard you try to fix something that’s so constant, it’s never ending.”

The Philadelphia district’s school year begins Sept. 5. Here is what the district and city say they will do this year:

— Continue to hire crossing guards to patrol heavily trafficked school areas. So far, the city has assigned 650 crossing guards to schools across Philadelphia, and the city is still accepting applications, officials said.

— Update 150 analog cameras to digital cameras over the next three years and merge the cameras’ monitoring systems with those of the city government. Watlington has pledged this update as part of the district’s five-year strategic plan.

— Introduce new “minimally invasive gun detection systems” in 14 middle schools. Those systems will appear as two stanchions in school doorways that students must walk through, rather than a full standup metal detector or wand.

Students won’t have to take off their backpacks, or send their personal belongings through a conveyor belt like at the airport, to pass through these systems, Bethel said. In previous years, parents, students, and teachers have expressed concerns that metal detectors could make students feel like criminals. Bethel said these new “less intrusive” detectors were chosen because district officials were looking for technology “that did not add to the trauma of our young people.”

— Expand the Safe Path program from 13 schools to 22 schools in partnership with the University of Pennsylvania. Those programs will come online incrementally, Bethel said, as community groups “get on board” with staffing, security clearances, and vetting through Penn. Though maintaining consistent staffing for these programs was challenging when they launched in 2022-23, Bethel said he hopes they will be fully staffed this school year.

— Launch district-owned drones, in some cases piloted by students. Bethel said the district is still in the early stages of planning for drones, but they are looking into expanding the use of drones to patrol violence-prone areas without the need for police on the ground. Bethel said he’s aware of concerns about increasing student and city resident surveillance, but said “the core purpose” of using them would be to “make sure that I’m keeping my children safe. There’s no ulterior motive to try to look for.”

Bethel said students would not monitor the drone footage, however, as the idea of students surveilling other students is highly controversial.

“We don’t want to put kids in a position where their … peers could construe it to be something negative,” Bethel said.

— Increase participation in the city’s many out-of-school-time programs. These include homework help, field trips to ice skating rinks and museums in and around Philadelphia, peer mentoring programs, and community-based prevention programs for youth who have been impacted by violence.

— Increase Philadelphia police presence in and around schools using a new $600,000 grant. At Wednesday’s press conference, Police Commissioner Danielle Outlaw did not give an estimate for how many officers this would pay for.

— Train all district employees in ALICE active shooter response training; ALICE stands for Alert, Lockdown, Inform, Counter, and Evacuate. This comes after school staff expressed concern that their prior training was inadequate, and Watlington and the school board committed nearly $1 million to upgrade their approach.

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

Q&A: Philly schools chief Tony Watlington touts positive attendance, fiscal trends in his first year

2023-08-23T20:16:33+00:00

One year into his tenure, Philadelphia Superintendent Tony Watlington’s methodical approach is focused less on grand oratory and more on incremental steps towards achieving his goal of creating “the fastest improving large urban district in the country.”

In an interview with Chalkbeat, Watlington highlighted an increase in student attendance of three percentage points, a bump in teacher attendance of seven percentage points, a 265-student decline in the number of dropouts, and a rosier fiscal outlook for the district since he took over last summer .

Watlington said he is now focused on improving student safety, repairing and upgrading school buildings, bolstering district communication with families, and launching a $70 million curriculum overhaul, starting this year with math.

“We’ve got the momentum, we’ve got the wind behind us now,” Watlington said. “We are going to accelerate reading and math performance this year now that attendance is up and the dropout rate is down … there’s an energy in our schools, there’s an energy in the bellies of our teachers and our principals.”

This coming school year, he’s pledged to increase the number of Safe Paths programs from seven to 13 schools, and update or replace 150 security cameras at schools that have them. On the academic front, he is planning to pilot a high-impact tutoring program at up to eight schools. As part of his five-year-strategic plan approved by the board, he also aims to build community support for a future year-round school pilot, which is presumptive mayor Cherelle Parker’s major education policy proposal.

Watlington is still facing serious challenges. Historic underfunding has left Philly schools in dire need of facility renovations and modernization. Student enrollment has declined, according to recent district data. Teacher vacancies are up. And gun violence is continuing to plague school communities: During the last school year, 199 students were shot in Philadelphia and 33 of those shootings were fatal, according to the district.

As the new school year approaches, some 85% of district schools have the new math curriculum materials they are scheduled to begin teaching this year, Watlington said. Though the district hired 700 new teachers and counselors for the upcoming year, the district’s teacher workforce is only staffed at 95%, he said. That means there could be more than 400 vacancies among its approximately 9,000 teacher positions that still need to be filled before the school year starts Sept. 5.

“We’ve still got work to do,” Watlington said of teacher hiring. He said the district has had to look outside of Pennsylvania to “expand our recruitment footprint, speed up the onboarding time, so we can get people hired quicker.”

Watlington’s low-key approach has been markedly different from Philadelphia school leaders in the past like Paul Vallas, who declared the need for a dramatic turnaround and immediately instituted new policies and initiatives upon arriving in the city. In temperament and leadership style, Watlington is more like his immediate predecessor, William Hite.

In his first year, Hite had to deal with significant state budget cuts and presided over wrenching, permanent school closures, which sparked community anger that led to saving some of the schools slated to be shuttered.

Watlington has had billions in federal COVID aid to help him get through his inaugural year at the district — although a “fiscal cliff” is looming for 2024-25, when that aid ends.

Watlington sat down with Chalkbeat on Wednesday to reflect on his first year in office and discuss his goals for the upcoming school year and beyond. This interview has been lightly edited for length and clarity.

What are the biggest challenges you’ve faced during your tenure?

One of the biggest challenges continues to be the facilities in our district. We’re having to work really hard … to basically right the wrongs of systemic underfunding over a long period of time.

We’re not putting our heads in the sand, we’re not hiding in the corner complaining. We’re just stepping up to the plate.

[The district operations team] has been working hard on developing a master swing space plan so that when we have another school closure [due to damaged asbestos] — not if, but when we have another school closure in the school district, we can get our kids back in in-person learning much quicker than we did at Frankford High School.

We’ve been working throughout the summer to start planning for a project team that will launch this fall. That project team will help us identify how to, within our existing resources, build our long-range plan to bring all of our schools up to 21st century standards. It won’t happen overnight, but this year, we’re gonna tackle those tough issues with a lot of internal and external people.

What is your number one priority for the district this year?

We’re going to partner with our parents and really ramp up and improve our communication and parent engagement efforts so that we can improve reading and math performance.

Bottom line, our kids need to be able to do reading and math on grade level. It is super critically important. And we know we can make significant improvements. We have to make good investments. We are focused on what the research tells us and we all have to wrap our arms around our young people together as a city and say we must and we can do better.

What do you think success looks like for the Philadelphia school district?

Success for the school district is when we increase the third grade on grade level reading performance. We’ve got to get more of our young people [access to] algebra in middle school because it’s a gateway to higher level math in high school. And when they get to high school, we need our kids to graduate in four years, prepared to go into building trades, the community college, or a four-year institution where they don’t have to take remedial courses. That’s how we’re defining success.

How do you ensure you’re being a leader rather than a crisis manager?

The number one way … we keep our district from being a district that operates in crisis [is] we have to have a roadmap, a strategic plan, because … it tells us clearly: What specific priorities and strategies are we going to align all of our resources to?

The strategic plan is designed in such a way that we don’t do everything at one time. … We won’t do a haphazard job. … One of the reasons why we’re not implementing the year-round schools [model] this year is because we’re going to take this year to build parent and community interest, and we’re going to take the time to build the best model for Philadelphia. … We’ll launch that in 24-25 versus this school year.

[Another] way we stay out of crisis mode is we constantly take a look at our budget and our data to see what’s working, what’s not working. It’s simple: this strategic plan will help us to put more resources into where we’re getting a return on investment, and things that aren’t working, quite frankly, we’re going to stop doing them. That’s why we’re not continuing with certain curriculum programs in our school district. We’re not getting the return on investment.

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 families rejoice at school’s new playground amid fears for children’s safety

2023-08-17T22:24:53+00:00

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When Duane Watts was a student at Edward Steel Elementary School in Philadelphia’s Nicetown neighborhood more than 40 years ago, he remembers running excitedly out of his classroom for recess and being confronted with concrete.

No swings, no slides, no monkey bars to climb on. “We would play tag, but nothing was actually present and given to us to play with,” he said.

But that’s no longer true for the children attending Steel, a pre-K-8 school of more than 300 students. On Thursday morning, school officials and nonprofit leaders cut the ribbon on a new $45,000 playground in Steel’s side yard.

Built over the summer with donated funds, the playground gives children more room to play at a time when policies like the city curfew and restrictions on unaccompanied minors at businesses, as well as gun violence that has affected Nicetown and other Philadelphia neighborhoods, have made it harder for children to congregate and spend productive time together in public spaces.

Teachers and counselors at Steel who fought for the playground by writing grants and building partnerships and community support for it looked on in tears at the ribbon cutting. At least a dozen parents brought their children to be the first to test out the new equipment.

“This is a huge deal for us,” said Nicole Wyglendowski, a special education teacher for K-3 students who helped with the effort. Younger children especially need playgrounds with inviting activities to help them to learn to get along with each other and “just have fun,” she said.

Counselor Maria Lajara, who helped write the grant proposal for the playground with fellow counselor Klarissa Hudson, pointed out most Steel students “don’t really have a nearby city playground that is safe to play in. They want to play, and they didn’t have anything to play with. This is a great asset for them, they deserve that.”

A study in 2019 found that only one third of Philadelphia’s schools had playgrounds, and most of those were in more affluent areas. Advocates have made the case that quality playtime is vital to children’s physical and emotional health, and the lack of playgrounds in some areas of the city has become part of the broader debate about the need for educational equity.

District spokesperson Marissa Orbanek said the situation has improved since then. Of 149 district schools with elementary-age students in the city, 79 have fully equipped playgrounds and 70 don’t, although 11 of those have play equipment in various stages of planning or construction.

The cost of the playground was underwritten by The Block Cares, a two-year-old nonprofit organization with a mission to uplift children; the Robert Half Company, a recruiting firm; and some private donations. The Block Cares is affiliated with The Block Church, a non-denominational Christian congregation founded in 2014.

Maria Little, director at The Block Cares, said her organization has a “mission to empower urban youth and kids to experience a limitless future.” When the organization began working in the Nicetown area, it connected with Steel Elementary and became especially interested in supporting teachers and students as they returned to in-person learning from the pandemic.

Parent Samantha Dowd, who has five children at Steel, had just heard that morning about the playground and the dedication ceremony.

“I was shocked,” she said. “This is really nice. To see something like this is important, especially at a time when so many tragedies are happening,” referring to the gun violence that is plaguing the city.

She was grateful her kids now have a safe space to play. As she spoke, her son Isaac Carter was already on the monkey bars, and her daughters were enjoying the swings. “It’s fun,” Isaac said.

Najalene Bey’s daughter, third grader Amina Ray, made a beeline for the swings as soon as she could. Bey said she had attended Steel herself. When she was a student, they would play sidewalk games like hopscotch, foursquare and jump rope during recess. But surveying the new playground, she said, “I wish we had this.”

Grandmother Darlena Green, watching the children, observed: “They’re not gonna go home now.”

Orbanek said that the district partners with outside organizations for funding what she called “schoolyard transformations.” They include the Eagles Annual Playground Build project and the Trust for Public Land (although not The Block Cares). Grants are provided by the William Penn Foundation, earmarked funds through state legislators, and neighborhood groups connected to schools. (Chalkbeat receives funding from the William Penn Foundation.) The Steel project falls into the latter category.

She noted that the district’s strategic plan includes providing safe, welcoming spaces for students, and that building more playgrounds fits into this.

“We have a vision for our schoolyards to be much more than paved asphalt parking lots,” said Oz Hill, the district’s chief of operations, in a statement. “We strive to provide a dynamic space for playful learning with green space, active recreation, quiet areas, and space to refocus and unwind and creatively engage in learning and socializing through play.”

Watts, who remembers the schoolyard’s concrete during his days as a Steel student, is now the school’s academic teacher leader. After graduating from Dobbins Area Vocational Technical High School and attending college, he went on to a career in finance before switching to education.

He has family members who still live in Nicetown, and he said the neighborhood’s public park is not safe.

“Yeah, this is significant,” he said. “To see this now as a new playground in the area and have it attached to the school that I attended, and the community having access to it, it’s just indescribable.”

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

Report: Pennsylvania’s low-income, Black, and Hispanic students have least experienced teachers

2023-08-07T22:11:49+00:00

Black or Hispanic students and those from low income families are the least likely to receive the most experienced, qualified teachers in Pennsylvania, a new study from Pennsylvania State University shows.

Using Pennsylvania Department of Education data from the 2020-21 school year, researcher Ed Fuller found that schools with the greatest percentage of students eligible for the federal free and reduced-price meals “had substantially greater percentages of novice teachers, teachers assigned out-of-field, and teachers on emergency permits than schools with the lowest percentages of students eligible for the…program.”

Fuller, a professor of education who works with Penn State’s Center for Education Research & Policy Analysis, said the pattern holds for elementary, middle, and high school levels, although the upper grades have the highest percentage of teachers lacking full qualifications. The shortages are most acute in urban areas, he found.

Schools in districts that are relatively underfunded, including Philadelphia, had higher percentages of “novice” teachers with under three years of experience, teachers who were teaching a subject in which they were not certified, and teachers who were working with emergency credentials.

“Overall, the evidence overwhelmingly shows that students most in need of well-qualified teachers are the least likely to be enrolled in schools that provide qualified teachers,” the report said. According to Fuller’s data, Black students were twice as likely to be enrolled in schools that lacked fully qualified teachers than white students.

“Regardless of the measure you use, the teacher qualifications of those teaching in Philadelphia county are lower than any other county in the Commonwealth,” Fuller said in an interview.

While that is “no fault of the teachers” who are hired to work in the city, he said, “that’s what struck me the most.”

Much of this is due to the high number of charter schools in the city, which educate about 70,000 students, compared to about 119,000 in district-run schools. Under the state law that established them, charter schools can have as many as 25% of their teachers be uncertified.

Fuller’s data shows that nearly 28% of teachers in charter elementary schools in Philadelphia have less than three years experience, while 41% are teaching out of their field, and 11% are not fully certified. That compares to 13% of novice teachers in district schools, 11% teaching out-of-field, and 5% who aren’t fully certified.

Another part of the issue is that the number of teachers graduating from teacher certification programs in Pennsylvania is at an all-time low, with just 4,000 graduating this year, Fuller noted. That compares to 16,000 a decade ago, in 2011-12.

Historically, he said, a quarter of those coming out of teacher prep programs in Pennsylvania each year would end up teaching in Philadelphia.

“The differences in teacher quality — exacerbated by the current shortage of teachers — all but guarantees the vast gap in achievement and other outcomes between students of color and white students as well as between students participating in [free and reduced meals] and their more affluent peers,” the report said.

Fuller attributed much of this difference to spending disparities among districts in Pennsylvania, whose education funding system was ruled unconstitutional by Commonwealth Court Judge Renee Cohn Jubelirer in February. She ordered the state to fix the system.

But while the budget passed by the legislature and signed last month by Gov. Josh Shapiro has a historic boost in education funding, it did not overhaul the system in a way that would come close to meeting Jubelirer’s mandate.

Teacher salaries in Philadelphia range from around $50,000 for new teachers with a bachelor’s degree to about $100,000 for those with 11 years experience or who have reached the status of senior career teacher.

District spokesperson Marissa Orbanek said that its Philadelphia schools are expecting 650 new teachers and counselors at its new hire orientation next week.

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 revises selective admissions process after uproar from students, educators

2023-08-04T21:18:25+00:00

Middle schoolers at five of Philadelphia’s selective admissions schools will no longer have to reapply to their schools for ninth grade, while preferences for students from historically underrepresented neighborhoods at those schools will continue but with updated data, the school district announced this week

Under the wide-ranging changes to selective school admissions, the district will also place a greater priority on ensuring students with disabilities and English language learners have access to magnet schools, based on mandates stemming from a 1994 court decision known as LeGare.

However, the district has decided to maintain a requirement that students reach certain test score cutoffs as a prerequisite for admission to 22 selective schools, despite a recommendation from a consulting firm. But those cutoff scores could change for at least some schools under the district’s revised admissions system.

The changes, which will go into effect for the 2024-25 school year, follow months of widespread confusion, discontent, and protests in the district about the new lottery-based system Philadelphia adopted in 2021. Students, educators, and others who criticized the process said it was hurting the long-term viability of several selective schools and would lead to the forced transfer of teachers and layoffs, among other concerns.

In early April, a dozen of these schools had hundreds of open seats just a week before the deadline for students to pick their schools next year. At the same time, many students who applied to selective schools didn’t get into any of them.

In June, the consulting firm Accenture told the district that among students, educators, and others who were surveyed about the new system, only about one in five said they liked it.

Accenture also concluded that the process was confusing, not well communicated, and potentially excluded promising students from the candidate pool.

The application process for the 2024-25 school year runs from Sept. 15 to Oct. 27.

Changes to selective admissions unpopular among students, staff

Two years ago, Philadelphia overhauled its admissions process for the city’s 22 selective (also known as “criteria-based”) schools to create a lottery-based system, with the goal of providing more equity and opportunities, especially for Black and brown students from relatively low-income neighborhoods who have typically lacked access to these schools.

The changes reduced the power of principals to influence the makeup of their incoming classes through factors like interviews, and officials hoped the system would reduce conscious and unconscious bias.

This new system resulted in higher Black and Latino enrollment at some of the selective schools, according to a Chalkbeat analysis from last year. But the new process has made only a small dent in the demographics at Central and Masterman, the city’s most selective schools, which continued to have much higher proportions of white and Asian students and lower proportions of Black and Latino students, than the district as a whole.

But last year, a group of parents filed a lawsuit in federal court to overturn the new admissions process. They called it a “blatantly unconstitutional race-based system.” The outcome of that suit is pending.

Under the revised system the district announced Thursday, the selective admissions process will continue to include preferences for students who come from historically underrepresented ZIP codes, mostly in North and West Philadelphia. However, the ZIP codes that will get preferences are still being determined based on the newest data, according to district spokesperson Marissa Orbanek.

But the lottery resulted in hundreds of qualified students receiving admission to none of their choices and reduced enrollment at many schools severely enough that they lost teachers and other staff.

Under the current system, students entering ninth grade list five schools of interest not ranked by preference. They are entered into lotteries for each school for which they qualified — a process that resulted in some students getting into all five of the most sought-after schools, while others got into none.

For applying this fall to enter in the 2024-25 year, there will be a second stage for students who received no offers through the lottery. If they were waitlisted at all schools to which they applied, they will be offered admission to schools where seats are still available and there is no waitlist, according to a letter sent to families by Superintendent Tony Watlington.

In the first two years of the lottery system that began in 2021, students who were accepted into earlier grades at five highly selective schools that start in middle school — Masterman, Carver Engineering and Science, Girard Academic Music Program (GAMP), Hill Freedman, and Science Leadership Academy @ Beeber — had to reapply for the ninth grade, a requirement that caused consternation among many parents. Now, all who meet admissions requirements can stay at those schools.

That change, however, means the district will also reduce the size of the middle school at Masterman, where the lower grades enroll more students than the high school.

Orbanek said that all the criteria for the 22 most selective schools are being jointly worked out between central office administrators and individual schools. The precise test scores minimums for each school are still under development.

Accenture also found that the cutoff score requirement on the state exam — the Pennsylvania System of School Assessment, or PSSA — created issues with filling enrollment at 12 of the selective schools, including Girls High and SLA @ Beeber. Those 12 schools received fewer eligible applications than the lottery cap, leading to a 100% acceptance rate, but some of them were still unable to fill all available seats.

“The requirements for admission to these schools, particularly the PSSA percentile, may have been set too high to maximize the number of offers received,” the consultant’s report said.

Accenture’s survey results found that more than 44% of principal respondents were “strongly dissatisfied or dissatisfied” with the PSSA as a criterion for admissions, compared to more than 26.2% who felt that way about the attendance requirement, and 24.6% for grades requirements. Accenture recommended that district leaders “collaborate with school leaders” to ensure each school has appropriate admissions criteria.

Accenture’s data analysis showed that over 90% of applicants to ninth grade in 2022 “did not meet the PSSA requirement.” About half didn’t meet the grade requirements and a third failed to qualify based on attendance.

Before the lottery system, principals were able to interview and otherwise vet applicants who looked promising, but did not technically qualify based on test scores and, sometimes, one of the other criteria. A teacher at one school, who did not want to be identified due to not being authorized to speak, said that a study of students admitted who met the technical requirements compared to those who didn’t showed similar outcomes regarding graduation and experiences after high school.

Regarding access for students with disabilities and English learners to selective schools, the district’s changes to the admissions process include “improving the impartial review process” for such students at the high school level and “creating a process for an individualized review” for those applying to middle schools.

Margie Wakelin, senior attorney at the Education Law Center, which advocates for students with disabilities, noted in a statement that before the 2021 lottery system, only .5% of students at Central High had individualized education plans. Under the 2021 system, that increased to 1.3% for the 2022-23 school year, she said.

“We support efforts to examine the current LeGare process to determine if it is working for students with disabilities and English learners. Data indicates that this is not currently the case,” 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.

Philadelphia students discuss ‘never ending’ gun violence with school, state leaders

2023-08-04T18:49:50+00:00

Samaya McArthur is about to start her freshman year at the Arts Academy at Benjamin Rush High School in Northeast Philadelphia and she’s concerned about the gun violence plaguing her city. But she isn’t sure adults can fix it.

“Some things just can’t be solved,” McArthur said. “No matter how hard you try to fix something that’s so constant, it’s never ending.”

McArthur and 21 of her peers shared their thoughts and concerns about gun violence and youth mental health with the state Attorney General Michelle Henry, Superintendent Tony Watlington, and members of the school board at a roundtable event at the district offices on Friday.

“You just never know when somebody is going to pull [a gun] out,” McArthur said in an interview after the event.

Gun violence has become an inextricable and devastating part of Philadelphia students’ lives, even though law enforcement officials have said shootings in the city have declined this year compared to the same period last year. During the 2022-23 school year, 199 students were shot in Philadelphia and 33 of those shootings were fatal, district spokesperson Marissa Orbanek said.

Henry told reporters on Friday her office has “seen shootings throughout the state that involve very young individuals who shouldn’t have access to guns,” and that the number of young people with access to firearms is rising.

Destini McCode, a 12th grader at Philadelphia High School for Girls in North Philadelphia, said officials “can put things in place to try and prevent” shootings, “but at the end of the day, you have to worry about your safety.”

And amid the fear children have about gun violence in the city, she said carrying a gun as a young person may offer them some protection.

Even if you keep your distance from people who you know have access to firearms, McCode said, someone “can get mad at you and try and pull something on you.”

That can lead to a tragic cycle, McArthur said.

“The family member of someone who got shot might want to take revenge on that person,” McArthur said.

Both students said they’d like to see more gun safety laws and stricter ones. They also recommended putting more security staff or other caring adults around schools to ensure students’ safety.

According to Watlington’s five-year strategic plan for the district, “students, school staff, families, and community members shared that the District has insufficient staff to meet students’ mental health and social-emotional needs, particularly in the midst of Philadelphia’s gun violence epidemic.”

“Schools need more trauma-informed approaches, more counselors, and more caring adults to listen and understand students’ experiences,” the strategic plan also says.

Friday’s event was part of an ongoing series of roundtables Henry’s office is hosting to hear from young people across the state about their experiences with gun violence and how it has impacted their mental health.

Henry said her intention in convening the roundtables is to “hear firsthand from students and teens about how it’s impacting them” and to learn from them as well. She said her office intends to publish a report with policy recommendations based on what they hear at this event and the others to come.

Henry pointed to her office’s “very aggressive” enforcement of straw purchase laws and illegal ghost guns as evidence that they are taking the issue seriously. But more could be done, Henry said.

“I think we need stronger gun laws. And I also think we need to aggressively enforce the ones we have,” Henry said.

The Republican-controlled state Senate has declined to advance several gun safety bills in recent months, including one measure that would enact so-called “red flag” laws to allow law enforcement to seize firearms from individuals deemed a danger to themselves or others.

In late July, Philadelphia Mayor Jim Kenney announced that the city filed a lawsuit against multiple gun vendors — including two in Northeast Philadelphia — alleging they “recklessly and repeatedly engaged in straw purchasing transactions, consequently fueling gun violence in Philadelphia.”

So-called “straw purchasing” occurs when someone buys firearms with the “intention of illegally transferring them to someone else or supplying the criminal gun market,” according to a statement from Kenney’s office about the lawsuit.

As officials try to come up with new policies and laws to prevent shootings, McCode said, lawmakers and those in power should do whatever they can to ensure this next school year is less deadly than the last.

“Adults are going to do what they want to do, but kids — you can protect them,” McCode said.

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

City of Philadelphia, school district settle contentious facilities lawsuit

2023-08-02T21:51:42+00:00

The city of Philadelphia and its school district have settled a lawsuit over building code that would have stripped the district of its authority to open schools dealing with asbestos and other environmental hazards.

In return for dropping the suit, the district will get $2.5 million from the city to help with data management and the city will assist the district with putting together a vetted “asbestos investigator workforce” to help the district meet its “intense [school] inspection demands.”

The settlement news broke during a City Council hearing called by education committee chair Isaiah Thomas on a proposal to create an independent authority to manage school facility construction and management.

The settlement was “reached after five months of vigorous, good-faith negotiations,” according to a joint statement from the city, Board of Education, and district leadership on Wednesday and “reflects greater accountability and transparency around the District’s environmental management.”

City and school officials are casting the agreement as the harbinger of a more collaborative and aligned relationship between the city and district. The suit was an unprecedented shot-across-the-bow from the school board who feared city officials would use new building code to wrest authority away from the district to close schools due to hazardous asbestos or other environmental problems. The lawsuit also angered some in city government who blamed the district for lacking transparency and failing to quickly remediate environmental dangers to students and staff.

In the past few months, six schools closed due to hazardous asbestos, and district officials have warned more temporary closures could be looming. One school, Frankford High School, which happens to be Thomas’s alma mater, still won’t be fully open to all students this fall.

In an interview, school board President Reginald Streater told Chalkbeat the settlement is a sign that “everything is falling into place at the right time,” because of the “partnership” between the city, board, and district.

“To me this is all positive,” Streater said. The agreement means the district will get more resources and the district and board will be “better partners in informing the public” going forward.

New master plans on the horizon

Superintendent Tony Watlington told council members at the hearing that the district is in the process of updating its 2017 Facilities Master Plan assessing the needs of each of its more than 300 buildings. He and Streater estimated that fully upgrading and modernizing the school district’s massive infrastructure, whose buildings on average are 73 years old, would cost nearly $8 billion.

Watlington said the new facilities study will be completed in June. He said that “internal and external stakeholders,” including not just district personnel but community members, would be involved to “construct a vision for modernizing learning facilities throughout Philadelphia.”

Oz Hill, the district’s deputy chief operating officer, said at the hearing that the district was also developing a “swing space master plan” to identify buildings in four quadrants of the city that could house students temporarily displaced due to environmental hazards in their schools or to construction and renovation efforts.

On Monday, Hill led a group of Democratic state legislators on a tour of South Philadelphia High School, which was built in 1957. They literally gasped at the sight of the antiquated, creaky HVAC and electrical systems as the district’s director of facilities, Jeff Scott, explained that in some cases, parts to repair them are no longer available. “We have to scavenge,” he said.

He pointed to boilers built in 1989 with a shelf life of 30 years that are still in operation. “We’re operating on borrowed time,” Scott said. The old systems cause some parts of the building to be hot while others are cold, he said.

“The challenges here are reflective of the challenges we have throughout the district,” Hill told the legislators and others on the tour.

Fully updating the HVAC systems in the district’s buildings would cost $40.6 million, while it would cost $28.4 million to modernize the electrical grid, he said.

Philadelphia schools Superintendent Tony Watlington said a new school facilities study will be completed in June.

At the hearing, several council members noted that the district’s facilities problems relate to what they called the historic underfunding of city schools by the state. One outside expert witness, Mary Filardo of the 21st Century Schools Fund, a national nonprofit dedicated to modernizing schools, noted that Pennsylvania ranks near the bottom of states in its commitment to facilities needs for their districts.

“This is an area where states have to do much more,” she said. “States haven’t stepped up to their responsibility.” She said national average state funding for capital costs to its districts is only 16% – compared to more than half of operating costs – “and Pennsylvania is even lower than that.”

While Gov. Josh Shapiro proposed in his budget $500 million over five years to help school districts with capital needs, that line item was deleted by the Republican-controlled Senate. The entire state budget is now held up over a dispute regarding school vouchers.

What the parties have agreed to

The settlement agreement requires the district to inspect all school buildings twice annually and post reports from those inspections online “in a timely manner” including “detailed information” about any asbestos abatement.

While the settlement doesn’t substantively change any school inspection requirements, it gives the district $2.5 million from the Department of Public Health. That money will help “improve data management associated with environmental hazard reporting” so it can meet the federal AHERA mandates.

Legislators and district officials tour the heating and electrical systems in the basement of South Philadelphia High, Monday, July 31, 2023.

According to the settlement agreement, the district has completed more than 300 inspections of district buildings since August 2022.

The joint statement on Wednesday reflects a change of tune from the early days of the lawsuit.

The suit was originally filed by the school board in January 2023 and alleged that a building code update — created by Bill 210685-AA — would give a mayor-appointed committee, rather than the school district, power to certify the safety of school buildings.

At the time the suit was filed, city officials criticized the board’s decision to sue rather than publicly work with them on building safety.

Former City Councilmember and mayoral candidate Derek Green, who cosponsored the bill creating the code change, said in an interview Wednesday that he “hope[s] this spirit of communication and the spirit of cooperation,” between the city and school leaders, “continues going forward to not only address asbestos,” but some of the other issues the district is facing including costly capital needs and the need for more state aid for the district.

Schools aren’t just ‘a different kind of office building’

While Streater and Watlington did not oppose the idea of an outside agency to supervise and manage school construction, they emphasized all the work that the district has been doing to upgrade its facilities. Watlington noted that the 2017 facilities plan estimated that there was $4.5 billion in deferred maintenance. Between 2013 and 2023 the district invested $1.72 billion in facilities, including the construction of several new buildings, and currently plans to spend nearly $2.5 billion over the next five years.

But Filardo and other outside experts who testified raised caution about the model of using an independent school building agency, which has had mixed results in other cities and states.

Cynthia Smith, the executive director of facilities planning, design and construction of the Baltimore City school district, raised the thorny issue of permanent school closures that could be a part of any effort to modernize and upgrade the city’s educational infrastructure. Even when people are offered a brand new school in the neighborhood, they often rebel, she said, especially after they were on the front lines in fighting for more state funds. “That is a very difficult part of this process,” she said.

Plus, such an authority needs to have people who understand the needs of schools, not just construction, she said. They have to understand that schools aren’t just “a different kind of office building.”

Filardo also said, after listening to Watlington explain what the district is planning, said it sounded more like an architectural plan than a comprehensive educational vision. “I don’t think it’s going to get you there,” she said.

Thomas said that he learned a lot from the witnesses and said the agreement between the city and district on the facilities issue was a step forward. “Instead of lawsuits, let’s work collaboratively for our students, teachers, and families,” he said.

Streater seconded that.

“I hope we never go down that route again,” Streater said.

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

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

School supplies, registration, and ice cream: Philadelphia’s back-to-school bus tour begins

2023-07-31T19:00:38+00:00

The first day of school is still more than a month away, but Philadelphia is starting the back-to-school excitement early.

Monday marked the kick-off event for the school district’s third annual back-to-school bus tour, an effort started in 2021 to share information and resources for the upcoming school year, and to improve communication between the district and families — an issue that’s continued to dog district leaders.

Parents and students gathered at the Martin Luther King High School in Germantown for free ice cream, music, and information about school registration.

“Today’s kickoff is our collective first step to uplifting all of our learners so that they are equipped to realize their dreams,” Philadelphia Board of Education President Reginald Streater said at the event.

This past year was a tough one in many ways for Philadelphia school families. Gun violence claimed the lives of more than 20 students. Damaged asbestos closed buildings. And issues with the city’s lottery enrollment system for special admissions schools damaged trust in district leadership.

This coming school year, Superintendent Tony Watlington’s second in office, he said he has big aspirations for the district. This bus tour will set the tone, he said.

District employees and volunteers on the tour offered families help with school registration, gave out free backpacks and school supplies, arranged immunizations, and shared information about school scheduling. The district’s first day of school for nearly 114,000 students will be Sept. 5.

Local businesses and city service agencies also set up tables at the event to let families know about SEPTA public transportation offerings for students, internet service assistance, events at public library branches, and other resources.

This is Watlington’s second year kicking off the tour. But it’s a smaller version of the 2021 back-to-school tour, which made 31 stops around the city. This year, the bus tour will make 11 stops and will run through Friday, Aug. 18.

“This back-to-school celebration allows us to engage our families right where they are, bringing important back-to-school information and services directly to neighborhoods across the city,” Watlington said Monday.

The tour is funded through a $150,000 grant from the Independence Blue Cross Foundation.

Parents Michelle and Wayne Jones said they are grateful the district is making an effort to connect with families. Wayne graduated from Martin Luther King High School in 1980 and has a daughter Giavonni who is about to start fourth grade in the district.

“It’s a beautiful thing,” Jones said, “to see my school having something for the community.”

Priscilla Howard — the guardian for Jada and Jayden Whipple, two students in the district — said the tour has saved her money on backpacks. Howard said the event is especially important for her family and neighbors in the Black community who have struggled under what the city has called generations of “disinvestment” and “structural racism.”

“We need this,” Howard said. “Everything is going up but the paycheck.”

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

How Philadelphia is rolling out its first big curriculum shift in 7 years to teachers and schools

2023-07-24T18:57:29+00:00

Anna Spencer is about to begin her first full year teaching middle school math in September, starting her career just as Philadelphia invests tens of millions of dollars in brand new curricular materials.

She was one of 450 teachers who gave up two hours of their summer for a voluntary training on the new math resources. District officials say the $20 million curriculum from Imagine Learning will promote deeper understanding by students, instead of merely emphasizing process and procedure. And Spencer left the training energized.

“Students will be learning through problem solving rather than being told what to do,” she said.

The Philadelphia school district is planning to spend $70 million of pandemic aid on new textbooks, lesson materials, and other instructional resources that will start rolling out next school year, beginning with math. But how well teachers will be prepared to use them, and the impact they will have on classrooms, are issues still up for debate.

At its May meeting, in addition to the $20 million for Imagine Learning, the Board of Education voted to spend $20 million for an English language arts program called StudySync from McGraw Hill. The board also approved $5 million on new materials for English language learners and $5 million for new special education materials (A resolution to spend up to $20 million on science materials was withdrawn but is expected to be taken up later, bringing the total potential expenditure to $70 million.)

Anyone at the meeting hoping to learn more about the new instructional materials would have left disappointed, however. No district official gave any presentation about the new resources. And no board members asked questions about the resources before voting to approve them. The process underscored ongoing concerns about the district’s transparency.

In a letter to families and a subsequent press release, Superintendent Tony Watlington called the spending on new curricular materials a “historic investment” in the city’s children.

But some teacher preparation experts questioned whether there will be adequate professional development or teacher training to help new teachers and veterans get up to speed. (The English language arts materials will be phased in for the 2024-25 school year.)

“It’s really essential that the investment in teacher learning is deep” and involves something more than an optional webinar or a two-hour workshop, said Patrick Sexton, executive director of teacher education programs at the University of Pennsylvania Graduate School of Education. Many of Penn’s graduates go on to teach in Philadelphia schools.

The district invited feedback about updating curriculum during March and April and received some 3,000 responses, according to district spokesperson Marissa Orbanek. But that hasn’t stopped questions about the curriculum’s suitability, and whether teachers will be limited in their ability to help students in the same class who are at different levels of proficiency.

Nyshawana Francis-Thompson, the school district’s chief of curriculum and instruction, told Chalkbeat that the new materials represent “a significant shift from what we were doing in the past” and “will require a significant change for our teachers,”

“This is not an approach where the teacher stands in front of the classroom and … says ‘do step one, step two, step three,’” she said.

While district leaders worked with teachers and others to create an updated “academic framework” in core subjects in 2020, it hasn’t bought new materials since 2016, Francis-Thompson said. That framework lays out expectations for each grade level and lays out best practices.

More continuity for Philadelphia students across grades

Since 2016, in many subject areas, schools were able to choose between two or more different sets of curriculum resources. But now, through Watlington’s strategic plan known as Accelerate Philly, district officials are hoping to achieve more instructional continuity.

For all grade levels, “there will be one resource across the board,” Francis-Thompson said.

However helpful the voluntary professional development sessions are for teachers like Spencer who participated in them over two weeks in July, the 450 teachers who took part in them represent just a fraction of those who will be teaching with the new materials.

Officials stressed that such sessions are not the sum total of training and support that will be offered.

Sexton, from Penn, said that he considered the district’s initial voluntary training “a good first step,” and agreed that Imagine Math is “aligned with what we teach our [teachers-in-training] to do,”which is “going for deeper understanding. It’s looking not just for answers, but the thinking behind the answers,” he said. He also said the “culturally responsive” component of the math materials will help build support with parents.

Still, he said, it is important to consider “how are we looking at veteran teachers as learners, not as just implementers of curriculum,” Sexton said.

That’s where teachers like Eileen Wager come in. She’s been teaching for 13 years and is the “math lead” at Duckrey Elementary School in North Philadelphia. As such, she will be responsible for ongoing training for teachers at her school with the new materials.

She agreed with district officials that the new curriculum materials are focused on the students rather than the teacher. She noted a big change involves dividing students into groups so they can collaborate on problem-solving. In that model, the teacher works with one group while the others work independently.

Many teachers use this strategy now, but not all teachers are at ease with it, she said, even though “we’ve learned that having students split into small groups for hands-on activities is effective. I’m hoping this curriculum will be helpful in the long run in getting teachers comfortable with that.”

“Our math scores, as a country and as a district, have been in the toilet for years,” Wager added. “What we’ve been doing hasn’t worked. We need to be open to this new thing.”

According to the latest Philadelphia “district scorecard,” only 17% of students met the math proficiency standard on state testing in 2021-22, down from 22% in 2018-19.

Helping students reach a deeper understanding

Spencer, who will be teaching seventh grade at Bregy Elementary School in Southwest Philadelphia, said the two-hour training was helpful. Like Wager, she supports the use of small groups as part of the new math curriculum.

“I think it will be really really beneficial for students to have meaningful, deep understanding of content, versus rote memory or mimicking what the teacher is doing,” she said.

At the training session, teachers reflected on their own math experiences, discussed what they want their students to remember, and talked about the new curriculum’s philosophy and goals. Then they got a look at the new materials.

Spencer had two main questions during the training. Would the curriculum limit teachers’ agency by offering a daily script or rigid timeline? And what resources would it provide for working in a classroom where many of the students might be grade levels behind in their skills?

Ultimately, Spencer said the training convinced her that she could “switch things up if I need to.” She also said she thought the curriculum was nimble enough to allow her to help students who need additional help.

“The curriculum gives a list of prerequisites for each lesson,” she said. “We can see what students are supposed to have mastered [and can] review skills they’ve missed.”

Lola Sergeant, a five-year teaching veteran at Mayfair Elementary School who will teach seventh grade this fall, noted that the district’s academic framework calls for a more “conceptual” approach to math to deepen student understanding.

She said that dealing with students who are at vastly different levels “is an ongoing challenge,” but added: “I think this curriculum will do a better job of it, because it’s embedded more differentiation.”

Annemarie Hindman, a professor of early childhood education and educational psychology at Temple University, said the district’s emphasis on continuity through the new materials is an admirable goal.

But in practice, she said, teachers and school leaders are going to need a lot of support and buy-in to put these materials to work for their students, especially any changes to the reading materials.

“There is no curriculum package, no matter how scripted, that can help you work with every individual kid,” Hindman said.

Francis-Thompson said she understands these concerns, and said the district must ensure there’s “ongoing professional learning,” coaching, and other strategies in the coming years.

Spencer, for her part, is optimistic the new materials will be a boon for her as a new teacher.

“I trust what they’re trying to do,” Spencer said. “It’s a good starting point for me.”

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.

Pennsylvania Democrats, Shapiro cut budget deal without school voucher program

2023-07-06T01:48:04+00:00

A push by Pennsylvania Republicans and Democratic Gov. Josh Shapiro for a state-funded voucher program appears to be dead for now, after Shapiro said the program will not be enacted as part of the state budget.

In a statement Wednesday, the governor said he did not want to further hold up the already overdue budget. Last week, the Democratic-controlled House Rules Committee knocked down legislation that would have set up a $100 million so-called Pennsylvania Award for Student Success Scholarship Program.

As part of a deal with the House, which has a one-vote Democratic majority, lawmakers in that body passed the $45.5 billion budget bill with the voucher language included. Shapiro has promised to line-item veto the appropriation when it comes to his desk. Late Wednesday evening, the House voted 117 to 86 to send the bill to Shapiro.

“Without enabling legislation setting up this program, my Administration legally cannot implement it,” Shapiro said in his statement. “Knowing that the two chambers will not reach consensus at this time to enact PASS, and unwilling to hold up our entire budget process over this issue, I will line-item veto the full $100 million appropriation and it will not be part of this budget bill.”

Though the proposed voucher program will not be enacted as part of the state budget, Shapiro signaled similar proposals will continue to be brought up in the coming months as he has made clear he supports the idea of a state-backed, school-choice program.

“While I am disappointed the two parties could not come together, [House Majority] Leader [Matthew] Bradford has given me his word … that he will carefully examine and consider additional education options including PASS, Opportunity Scholarship Tax Credit (OSTC), and Education Improvement Tax Credit (EITC) as we work to address our public education needs in light of the Commonwealth Court’s recent education ruling,” Shapiro wrote in a statement.

In February, a Commonwealth Court judge declared Pennsylvania’s school funding system unconstitutional and ordered the General Assembly to bring it into compliance. While including some significant increases, this budget does not fundamentally overhaul the Commonwealth’s approach to education spending to provide adequate funding to all districts and make it more equitable.

Asked about vouchers, Philadelphia Superintendent Tony Watlington said in a statement that his hope is that lawmakers will focus on adequately and equitably funding education so that Philadelphia students have the necessary resources to get “the education they deserve and need.”

The voucher program — negotiated between Shapiro and Senate Republicans — quickly became a sticking point in budget discussions. In a budget it passed on June 30, the GOP-controlled Senate revised an earlier voucher plan to make it more palatable to holdouts by adding household income limits and reporting requirements for private schools. It also got a new name: PASS, rather than the previously proposed “Lifeline Scholarship Program.”

As written, the majority of Philadelphia School District students would have been eligible under both the PASS or Lifeline versions of the voucher program. Critics said either version has the potential to upend the city’s public school system.

Philadelphia Board of Education President Reginald Streater told Chalkbeat in a text Wednesday that “vouchers are a red herring and will not address the needs of the families who depend the most on public education.” He said the voucher proposal “feels like a dereliction of duty,” and that fully funding education would solve many of the district’s challenges.

“We are on the cusp of an educational renaissance,” Streater said. “The last thing Philadelphia needs is any legislation that adversely impacts a scintilla of funding, resources and attention that would have any unintended or intended effect of kneecapping Philadelphia’s collective efforts and momentum to provide our city with the public education system our students deserve.”

Meanwhile, proponents of the voucher program, including the conservative Commonwealth Foundation, said it could have been one of “the biggest, most impactful, positive change[s] in education in three decades.”

Ultimately, Democrats in the House stood firmly opposed to any state-backed voucher program, blocking the budget bill late on Friday and killing the separate Lifeline Scholarship voucher bill in the House Rules Committee.

“This is an embarrassing setback for Governor Shapiro on his first budget and at the hands of his own party,” Erik Telford, a spokesperson for the Foundation, said in an email. “Shapiro would rather cave to Matt Bradford than stand firm behind his pledge to support the kids trapped in failing schools, despite having reached a bipartisan agreement with support in the House and the Senate.”

Pennsylvania’s other school choice programs

Pennsylvania already has two programs that promote school choice: the Opportunity Scholarship Tax Credit and Educational Improvement Tax Credit. Both give tax breaks to businesses that donate to organizations that provide private school scholarships to students.

Those programs are notoriously opaque as state law prohibits the collection of information on academic achievement of EITC voucher students in particular. Although touted as a boon for low-income families, EITC has broad eligibility requirements — up to 500% of the poverty line. Families with three children and earning up to $168,000 a year can qualify.

OSTC, a much smaller program, is targeted more narrowly to families living in the attendance boundaries of the 15% of lowest-achieving schools in the state. Philadelphia has 139 such schools, which represents 36% of the 382 in the state, the largest number by far among the 500 districts in the Commonwealth. Both programs have steadily increased in cost over time; today, they are collectively funded at $340 million.

Susan Spicka, executive director of Education Voters PA, which opposes all voucher programs, said in an interview the PASS program’s ambiguous language could open the door to double or triple-dipping, allowing families to obtain funding from multiple school-choice programs at once.

Critics of both iterations of the voucher program also said it didn’t include enough protections against discrimination. Voucher programs in some states have been criticized for sending state money to private schools that discriminate against LGBTQ students and teachers.

“The goal of legislation like this … is to push vulnerable students and families into private and religious schools where they check their constitutional rights at the door,” Democratic Sen. Lindsey Williams said on the Senate floor before casting her no vote on June 30.

“Private schools can and do discriminate against disabled kids. Private schools can and do refuse to admit LGBTQ+ students. Private schools can and do refuse to accept kids because they are poor or struggling academically,” Williams said.

Supporters tout vouchers as lifelines for students trapped in failing public schools. Many education activists reject that idea.

Philadelphia and other districts like Reading and Norristown with high numbers of students in poverty aren’t failing, said Donna Cooper, executive director of Children First, an advocacy group that opposed the voucher program.

Rather, she said, “the state legislature is failing them by not funding schools sufficiently.”

Not all Philadelphia-area Democrats opposed the idea of vouchers, however. Democratic Sen. Anthony Williams, who represents parts of Philadelphia county, voted in favor of the budget with the voucher program included, saying parents in Philadelphia cannot wait for the public school system to improve or for the legislature to develop a new funding formula that meets constitutional muster.

The Shapiro-backed PASS voucher program would have cost $103.7 million but was contingent on a commitment that vouchers would be part of a full budget agreement. That pact would have to include historic education spending and fund priorities such as student mental health, special education, universal free breakfast, and “sustained funding for necessary and urgent environmental repairs in Pennsylvania schools,” said Manuel Bonder, Shapiro’s press secretary, in a text message Thursday night.

That historic increase never materialized. While the House added hundreds of millions in education spending to Shapiro’s proposed budget, the Republican-led Senate scaled back the total.

For instance, it eliminated $100 million Shapiro had proposed for school building repair — a desperate need in Philadelphia where several schools have closed due to asbestos — and increased special education by less than Shapiro wanted — $50 million instead of $143 million.

The Senate did increase so-called “Level Up” funding targeted to the 100 districts with the lowest per-pupil spending, including Philadelphia, which Shapiro’s proposed budget did not include.

Under the approved budget, basic education spending, the single largest line item, will increase by $567 million to a total of nearly $7.9 billion.

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 district will announce changes to lottery-based selective admissions at end of July

2023-06-30T18:15:53+00:00

Philadelphia Superintendent Tony Watlington announced Thursday that the school district will further revise its process for admission to its most selective schools, based on recommendations from a consulting firm hired to study the impact of a lottery system introduced in 2021.

That system was introduced in an effort to increase the proportion of Black and Latino students at the most selective schools — Masterman and Central — and replaced a long-standing process in which principals generally made final admissions decisions. Instead, all students who met minimal requirements based on scores on the PSSA state standardized test, grades, attendance, and behavior records could enter the lottery.

In other business at its monthly meeting, the Board of Education approved more than $205 million in contracts, mandated Juneteenth instruction, and voted not to renew the charter of Southwest Leadership Academy.

In the presentation on the admissions process for selective schools, the consultants, Accenture, recommended that a strict PSSA cutoff should be eliminated as a requirement for several of the schools. In selective schools that start in middle grades, they suggested, students should not have to reapply to continue through the ninth grade.

Accenture conducted a survey of counselors, principals, students, and other stakeholders, in which 45% of principals said they were dissatisfied with the PSSA requirement, Nahomie Louis and Nicole Newman of Accenture told the board.

Additionally, that process gave preference to students in certain ZIP codes, primarily in North and West Philadelphia, who were historically underrepresented at Masterman and Central. That provision has been challenged by a group of parents who say it is a “blatantly unconstitutional race-based system.”

The consultants said that only 20% of persons surveyed said they liked the lottery process. And, based on data so far, that system has made only halting progress in reaching its goal and had unintended consequences. While the demographics at Central and Masterman showed slight increases from 2021-22 to 2022-23 in the proportion of Black and Latino students, it left hundreds of vacancies in some of the city’s other criteria-based schools, mostly those that had high Black enrollment.

Students also don’t appear to be in favor of the lottery system. Accenture’s survey found that 54% of students said they wanted to remove the lottery, and 38% said if it continues, they wanted to be able to rank their schools of choice rather than just submit a list of five.

Under the current process, students can get into all five schools or none, and they could get into a school or schools they really don’t want to attend while being shut out of their first choice.

Accenture consultants studied the systems in other cities, including Chicago, New York, and Washington, DC as part of their review. They found those cities more precisely tailored their plans to local circumstances and preferences.

“Many other districts already optimized their systems and curated them based on the needs of students,” they said, recommending that Philadelphia similarly “customize” its process. They also said Philadelphia should hire a staff dedicated to overhauling the process and have revisions and improvements in place by fall 2025.

Accenture has a $298,000 contract to evaluate the school selection process.

Board approved millions for building maintenance, tech, asbestos abatement

The board considered 104 separate items. Through its consent agenda, in which many items are voted on in a bloc with little or not discussion, the board voted to approve more than $205 million in spending on school building maintenance, food, lease agreements, an “instructional management system,” and more.

Some of the big ticket items:

$26.3 million for Contract with NCS Pearson for Schoolnet Instructional Management System, which comes on top of a $70 million expenditure approved at the last meeting for new curricular materials in reading, math, and science.
$69 million on an agreement with a city agency, the Philadelphia Authority for Industrial Development (PAID), to aid with capital projects involving the building and renovation of school buildings.
$24 million for “Contracts with Various Vendors for Asbestos Abatement in Various Schools”
$20 million for “Contracts with Various Vendors for Professional Environmental Design and Testing Consulting Services.”

Board member Cecelia Thompson voted no on several smaller spending items, including $6 million for snow removal and $300,000 for window shades, saying they came without explanation. Lisa Salley voted no on two resolutions to spend money on outside law firms.

The board also voted to terminate the COVID-19 vaccine mandate for employees (Salley dissented.

Board rejects charter renewal

The board also voted 7-2 not to renew the charter for Southwest Leadership Academy Charter school. The vote came after Rudolph Garcia, who presided over hearings following the board’s first vote to close the school in June, 2022, said Southwest Leadership has not improved its low academic record and is teetering on financial viability. Garcia presided over a hearing held in January and February contesting the board’s intent to revoke the charter.

Last month, the board denied the application to open a Global Leadership Academy high school. That vote and other denials have led some officials to allege that the board is biased against Black-led charters.

Before voting, board members repeatedly asked Garcia if there was any evidence of an upward trend. Garcia, unequivocally, said no.

“If I had seen some progress, if they were still performing below comparison groups, but catching up, I would have seriously considered that they be given more time to do it,” he said. “But that didn’t happen.”

He noted the pandemic was disruptive, but said all schools had to cope with that. “Everybody was affected, but the relationship between them and the other comparison groups didn’t change,” Garcia said.

The K-8 school, founded in 2007 with just over 600 students, was trying to expand, but “got ahead of their skis,” Garcia said. It bought property to build a new school, but were not able to enroll enough students to justify or pay for the expansion, he said.

Board member Lisa Salley, who voted no on the closure along with Cecelia Thompson, said she was concerned that the audit of the school’s finances seemed “biased.” “I don’t see the objective evidence to support” the nonrenewal recommendation, she said.

Parent Robyn Fernandes, who has children at the school, disputed Garcia’s conclusions, saying that the enrollment is 92% Black, and those students outperform Black students in other charters and in comparable district schools.

She upbraided the board members for never visiting the school or taking to parents and the community about its positive impact on students. “No one has had a conversation with us,” she said. “No one has set foot in the school.”

At its May meeting, the board voted down an application of Global Leadership Academy.

Peng Chao, director of the board’s Charter Schools Office, said that 14 charters are up for renewal this year with a total enrollment of 14,000 students, one of the largest cohorts ever considered at one time.

Chao gave more detailed information on five of those schools that do not meet standards in one of more categories: Deep Roots, KIPP North Philadelphia, Mastery Prep Elementary, Mathematics Civics and Sciences, and Christopher Columbus.

Mathematics Civics and Sciences also failed to meet standards for organizational compliance. And Chao noted that while the school reports a 100% graduation rate, the performance of its students on Keystone exams measuring proficiency in math, language arts, and sciences fall below comparable schools.

Christopher Columbus met academic standards, but failed to meet organizational compliance benchmarks.

He recommended that Columbus be renewed for five years with conditions, while the others be renewed for just one year with conditions.

At the meeting, Watlington also said that 10th through 12th graders at Frankford High School, which had been closed due to asbestos, would return in September to a refurbished wing in the school. Officials had previously announced that the building would not be open next school year and all students would be relocated.

Now, only ninth graders will go elsewhere, to the third floor of Clemente Middle School, Watlington said. An assistant principal and other staffers will be on that site and students will be provided transportation back to Frankford for afterschool and other out-of-school-time activities, said Associate Superintendent for High Schools Tomas Hanna.

Students will be required to learn about Juneteenth

The board also approved a resolution to make sure all students learn about Juneteenth, but amended the original resolution that said it should be taught “in all content areas” from grades kindergarten through 12th. It now says Juneteenth lessons should be taught “to all students where appropriate in the curriculum” starting in 2023-24.

Juneteenth is a national holiday that commemorates the end of slavery in the United States. Although President Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation, which declared “all persons held as slaves” in Confederate states shall be free, on January 1, 1863, freedom for many would only be gained later. On June 19, 1865, Union soldiers informed enslaved people in Galveston, Texas, that they were free people; and this event, eventually known as Juneteenth, became a celebration of independence for Black people.

At Thursday’s board meeting, Watlington, a former history teacher, noted that most persons of African descent lived under slavery for 246 years – from the first arrival of enslaved Africans to English colonies in 1619 to the abolition of slavery in 1863, and then under Jim Crow segregation for another 100. And their civil and voting rights “continue to be under attack” in some parts of the country, he said. .

The board resolution calls for the school district to collaborate with educators, administrators, and community partners to develop and provide age-appropriate instructional resources, materials and professional development opportunities that support the teaching of Juneteenth.

The district will also engage parents, families, and community members by offering resources, hosting events, and promoting dialogue to enhance understanding and appreciation of Juneteenth and Black history.

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

Push for Pennsylvania vouchers, backed by governor, could upend Philadelphia public schools

2023-06-27T14:04:28+00:00

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Pennsylvania’s Republican lawmakers are working to fast-track a bill to create a state private school voucher program that now has the backing of Democratic Gov. Josh Shapiro, as alarmed critics say it could devastate Philadelphia’s public schools.

The bill creating a “Lifeline Scholarship Program” would set up spending accounts for families in areas with “low-achieving” public schools to use for tuition and fees at private schools instead. The Senate bill creating these scholarships includes language that would set up these vouchers for the 2023-24 school year.

It is unclear if lawmakers will ultimately include Lifeline Scholarships in the budget for the upcoming fiscal year, or try to pass it separately; the new fiscal year begins July 1. But if enacted, the bill would have a particularly significant impact on Philadelphia by making thousands of students in the city eligible for such an account, regardless of their family’s economic background. More than 100 Philadelphia public schools meet the state’s definition of “low-achieving.”

During his 2022 gubernatorial campaign, Shapiro said he backed the concept of Lifeline Scholarships, although in a June 23 Fox News interview he stressed that he would not agree to take money away from public schools to fund it: “We’ve got to invest more in our children, not less.” Yet his support for the voucher system still stands out at a time when state private school choice programs often attract much stronger support from Republicans than Democrats.

By supporting the voucher bill, Shapiro has split from education unions in the state, including the Pennsylvania State Education Association, the state’s largest teachers union that endorsed him in last year’s election. In a June 22 letter to Shapiro, the PSEA and other unions called Lifeline Scholarships “clearly irresponsible.” Philadelphia Federation of Teachers President Jerry Jordan, whose union also endorsed Shapiro, also called the bill “outrageous.”

Opponents say the bill will draw students and much-needed funding away from the Philadelphia school district at a time when it is already operating on a strained budget and facing declining enrollment.

“This could have a really big impact on schools in Philadelphia, and all of the other school districts across Pennsylvania that are the lowest performing, which is also correlated with the ones who receive the least funding,” said Priyanka Reyes-Kaura, K-12 education policy director at Children First PA advocacy group. “That’s what I’m really concerned about, that the districts that desperately need public funding to better serve their students are those who are going to be hurt by this lifeline scholarship program.”

The state already oversees two private school choice programs. But school choice supporters say students who attend low-performing schools in cities like Philadelphia, where charter school seats are limited and selective admissions lotteries have major issues, need more options. And they’re betting Lifeline Scholarships are the most bipartisan way forward.

Guy Ciarrocchi, a fellow with the conservative-leaning Commonwealth Foundation, said Philadelphia could be “on the edge of the biggest, most impactful, positive change in education in three decades.”

A ‘very ambiguous’ school choice bill?

The legislation would create a Lifeline Scholarship Fund within the state Treasury to help students who attend or live within the attendance boundary of a “low achieving” school to pay tuition costs, school-related fees, and special education services fees at a participating private school.

According to Pennsylvania law, a “low-achieving school” is a traditional public school that is ranked in the lowest 15% of schools in the state, based on standardized test scores. Data from the Pennsylvania Department of Education show 139 of 217 district-operated schools in Philadelphia are considered “low-achieving.”

For the 2023-2024 school year, those scholarships would be awarded on a first-come, first-served basis, “considering money available in the fund.” There is no price tag currently attached to the bill.

Students could receive scholarships of anywhere from $2,500 to $15,000, depending on their grade and their special education status.

Susan Spicka, executive director of Education Voters PA, which opposes the bill, said in an interview the bill is “very ambiguous” and could potentially apply to any student in Philadelphia, since more than half of the public schools in the city are considered “low achieving” under that state definition.

Overlapping attendance zones could mean a seven-year-old living in the attendance boundary of a low achieving high school could be considered eligible, even though they are not yet old enough to attend that school, Spicka said. But she added that the bill language doesn’t make this absolutely clear.

Spicka also raised the issue of “double dipping.” Pennsylvania has two programs, the Opportunity Scholarship Tax Credit and Educational Improvement Tax Credit programs, that give tax breaks to businesses that donate to organizations that provide private school scholarships to students. They both serve students in the bottom 15% of schools statewide.

Nathan Akers, a spokesperson for the Lifeline Scholarship bill’s sponsor, Republican Sen. Judy Ward, said in an email that “it is my understanding that there is no prohibition in the lifeline legislation on someone who is receiving a lifeline scholarship from also receiving scholarship money under the [Opportunity Scholarship Tax Credit] program.”

However, Lifeline Scholarships would be the state’s first school choice program to use state funds, rather than private donations to scholarship-granting groups.

Opponents also say the voucher plan would fly in the face of a judge’s ruling early this year that found Pennsylvania’s school funding system unconstitutional. Commonwealth Court Judge Renée Cohn Jubelirer said in February that the system treats students in low-wealth school districts unfairly, and ordered lawmakers to revamp it. Shapiro previously sided with the plaintiffs in the funding lawsuit, who said the state needs to invest billions more in schools annually.

Earlier this month, Jubelirer gave lawmakers 30 days to appeal her ruling.

Asbestos, gun violence could fuel support for vouchers

Data on the success of school choice programs in Pennsylvania has been limited and hard to parse. In recent years, studies of voucher programs in Indiana, Louisiana, and Ohio have shown that students’ test scores did not improve, and in fact tended to decline. Another study of Washington, D.C., found that vouchers had no clear effect on test scores. Other research on outcomes later in life for students who used vouchers showed neutral or positive results.

Ciarrocchi said Philadelphia families might be growing impatient with public schools for several reasons. He cited ongoing school closures due to damaged asbestos, a gun violence epidemic that’s killed more than 20 students this academic year, and students who have been shut out of the lottery program for selective admissions schools or are on charter schools waiting lists.

“This is a chance to do something historic for the poorest of the poor in the schools that are clearly at the bottom,” Ciarrocchi said. “You look at the grades and you look at the violence and you look at the problems, that’s why they want a choice.”

But Reyes-Kaura said there’s a longer-term vision at stake. She argued the state should be focused on improving the education funding formula for all students.

“I understand why a parent who is desperate to get their child a better education might see a lifeline scholarship as something promising,” Reyes-Kaura said. “But it’s also a program that has the power to really detract from a moment where we could be rebuilding the public education system, to make it fair for everyone.”

Correction: June 27, 2023: A previous version of this story misstated a decision from Commonwealth Court Judge Renée Cohn Jubelirer. Jubelirer’s decision gives Republican lawmakers 30 days to appeal her ruling that found Pennsylvania’s school funding system unconstitutional.

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

Philadelphia principal has big plans for International Baccalaureate program at Jenks Academy

2023-06-15T21:08:04+00:00

Corinne Scioli remembers the moment she was sold on the International Baccalaureate program.

She was the assistant principal at Northeast Philadelphia’s Mayfair Elementary School, which educates almost 2,000 students and is the largest elementary school in the city. Its families come from more than 60 countries.

A few years ago, a first grader from Brazil “who spoke not a lick of English” showed up at Mayfair. Scioli, whose native language is Spanish and was once an English language learner in the U.S. herself, could make do in Brazilian Portuguese. So she communicated with the boy about his class homework assignment to make an object from recycled materials.

The assignment was a quintessential example of International Baccalaureate, also known as IB, a curriculum program that relies on a strategy of “learning by doing” while promoting cultural understanding and global awareness among students. In 2018, Mayfair became the first elementary school in the city to adopt the IB curriculum.

The boy came in the next day carrying a robot he had made from plastic water bottles and a shoebox. The boy had immediately engaged and was able to participate in school, despite the language barrier and the newness of his surroundings. For Scioli, “It was confirmation that the approach works.”

Scioli, 50, is now the principal of J.S. Jenks Academy of the Arts and Sciences, which is on track to become the second elementary school in the city to adopt the IB program and its demanding, project-based curriculum. Jenks received approval in April to be an IB candidate school for grades K-5, which means it has a year to explore its goals and refine its practices before seeking full IB authorization. Adopting IB also matches Superintendent Tony Watlington’s goal to accelerate academic achievement, and it’s one of the programs that he included in his five-year strategic plan, which was recently approved by the city Board of Education.

In a statement to Chalkbeat, district spokesperson Marissa Orbanek emphasized the IB program’s emphasis on “research and critical thinking skills, knowledge acquisition, and global awareness.” The statement also pointed out the strategic plan’s goal to provide students with “equitable access” to course offerings that are “more aligned with their interests, are relevant to their lives, and prepare them for their future.”

Although located in predominantly white and well-off Chestnut Hill, Jenks’ student body today is 81% Black, and most students come from low-income backgrounds. Just a third of the student body lives within the Jenks catchment.

Jenks, a K-8 school which enrolls about 420 students, is transitioning to the IB program on its 100th anniversary; it was built in 1923 on Germantown Avenue in Chestnut Hill and has served students ever since.

The IB curriculum is organized around six interdisciplinary themes: who we are, how we organize ourselves, how we express ourselves, where we are in place and time, how the world works, and sharing the planet. Jenks said the program also promotes social-emotional learning in addition to academics. And through the program, students will be able to take classes in a foreign language.

The IB program “follows a student inquiry cycle,” Scioli said. “They’re invited to think deeper and to be advocates for social and environmental justice. It puts that at the forefront.” In short, Scioli said IB’s framework “promotes everything I believe in.”

For elementary school students, “we want to encourage them to be hands-on learners and constructors of their own knowledge,” she said. Teachers will undergo extensive training so they can support this mission.

“This takes us to the next level,” she said.

Scioli recalls teaching her grandfather to write his name

The program’s global outlook resonates with Scioli for personal as well as professional reasons.

Although she was born on an Air Force base in Omaha, Nebraska, Scioli spent first and second grades in Panama, where her father was from. When she returned to the U.S. at the end of second grade, she had trouble with reading and writing English at grade level.

“In those days, instead of viewing bilingualism as an asset, many schools put foreign students who were learning English in special education classes,” Scioli recalled. But her father insisted that Scioli would not go to special education classes. Thanks in part to tutoring, her love of reading evolved from “Charlotte’s Web” to Shakespeare, all the way to an undergraduate degree in women’s studies and a master’s degree in education from the University of Pennsylvania.

Scioli also traces her path to becoming an educator to a time when she traced letters in the ground during a visit to the Dominican Republic to see her maternal grandfather, who was illiterate. Using a stick, she spelled out his name in the soil at the family farm. He then followed suit, and called the moment he learned how to write his name “incredible.”

“It was my introduction to being an educator, and it stuck,” she said.

She hopes to eventually receive approval for IB’s Middle Years Program for grades 6-8. According to the district eight schools currently offer IB programs: six high schools, two middle schools as well as Mayfair. Thurgood Marshall Middle school is also in the candidacy process.

“I want to create the same level of cultural awareness” that now exists at Mayfair, she said, “and help students to think critically, work with their hands as well as their minds, and help us all understand how to connect.”

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

Covid and asbestos closed their Philadelphia high school. They still graduated.

2023-06-14T18:01:03+00:00

The 180 students in Frankford High School’s graduating class fizzed with joy and nervous energy, clutching their empty diploma folders and waving to friends and family in the concrete stadium seats.

They’d already crossed the stage and snapped selfies with Principal Michael Calderone. The salutatorian and valedictorian had delivered their speeches. The choir performed the school’s alma mater.

But there was one thing left to do. The crowd turned their faces towards the space above the students’ heads and waited.

Tuesday was the last day of school for most Philadelphia students, and few had a longer, or more challenging route to graduation than those at Frankford.

The seniors slogged through their first two years of virtual high school due to COVID only to be thrust back into remote learning when their building was closed due to damaged asbestos in early April. The school will remain shut down into next year, and district officials have said they are working to find an appropriate space for in-person classes.

Complications dogged them to the very end. Graduation day, originally scheduled for Monday, was postponed because of rain, and the nearby I-95 highway bridge collapse had disrupted travel times for working students, commuting caregivers, and those looking for a jumpstart on summer vacation at the Jersey Shore.

But for Shamoya Garrison, walking across the stage on Tuesday made it all worth it.

“A lot of people said I couldn’t do it, but I did that,” Garrison said. “It’s been a tough four years, but I made it.”

This year’s graduating class was the first to complete Pennsylvania’s new graduation requirements, which opened five new alternate pathways under a 2018 law enacted called Act 158. According to the school district, 88% of this year’s senior class across the city is on track to graduate as of June.

The district said this year, 203 graduating seniors were enrolled in International Baccalaureate programs, 1,200 graduating seniors were dual enrolled in college courses, and 1,672 seniors are entering the workforce with a Career and Technical Education Certification.

“We are so proud of our trailblazing seniors,” Superintendent Tony Watlington said in a statement. “As I visited schools throughout the year I was, and continue to be, inspired by the stories that the seniors shared and the high expectations they set for me as the superintendent, and the District as a whole. These high expectations will have a direct impact on the future of our District and the city.”

Close to 180 Frankford High School students celebrated their graduation this week.

Calderone told us Tuesday was “the best day I’ve had in a couple months.” Still, the uncertainty about their building for next year has weighed on him. He’s expecting to give some updates at a school community zoom meeting on Thursday.

“The kids trust us to do the right thing by them and for them,” Calderone said. “The juniors all love the school and they all want to come back and hopefully we can make that happen for them sooner than later.”

Kayla Edwards, a Frankford student with autism, said she’s “in awe” that she “made it this far.”

“The closures really affected me but I got through it,” she said.

Next year, Edwards said she will be attending Moore College of Art & Design in Philadelphia.

Her mother Shannon said when Kayla started in the ninth grade at Frankford she was really “in her shell,” and the autism program the school offered helped her daughter grow and achieve. She said she hopes that program will be accessible for future students like Kayla.

Nayha Perez, another Frankford graduate, said the closures and disruptions were tough but “it better prepares you for the future. It helps to show you not everything is gonna be a smooth ride.”

Her advice to the students behind her in Frankford’s junior class who still don’t know where they will be attending school next September: “don’t stress yourself out so much because high school is overwhelming but once it’s over, it’s over.”

Calderone, the Frankford principal, stepped up to the podium at graduation when it became clear the students didn’t know what would come next.

“I have one last request,” Calderone said. “You guys failed miserably at the hat toss so we’re gonna count that down for you.”

“Three, two, one,” and the sky filled with red, blue and gold caps.

“That’s about right,” he said.

Vendors sold balloons and flowers to celebrating families outside Frankford High School’s outdoor stadium.

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

Philadelphia schools go remote for students Friday amid pollution from wildfire smoke

2023-06-09T00:14:16+00:00

Philadelphia schools will switch to remote learning on Friday “out of an abundance of caution,” district officials announced Thursday evening, due to ongoing concerns about air pollution from Canadian wildfires.

However, the district said all employees — including school-based staff — should report to their “normal work location.”

“The health and well-being of our students and staff is a top priority,” the district said in a statement issued Thursday at 6 p.m.

The district did not require school buildings to close Thursday, but did urge students and staff to stay indoors due to the smoke from the wildfires that has blanketed much of the Northeast this week and closed schools in New York City and Newark.

Remote learning may prove difficult for Philadelphia students, since staff have already collected district-issued Chromebooks in many schools as the end of the school year approaches.

In addition to remote instruction, scheduled outdoor field trips will be rescheduled or canceled. And several graduations and end-of-year “move up” ceremonies slated for outdoor spaces will be postponed. Those taking place indoors will proceed as scheduled. Principals were contacting parents late Thursday to provide updates.

The district’s statement said that environmental authorities had listed Philadelphia as “Code Red,” or “extremely unhealthy.” Philadelphia’s Air Quality Index actually improved during the day Thursday, declining to 164 (out of a possible maximum of 500) by Thursday afternoon. But it is still at “unhealthy” levels, city spokesperson Sarah Peterson noted.

Bus service for charter and private school students will be provided, said district spokeswoman Monique Braxton.

Crossing guards serving strictly district school locations do not have to report Friday, Peterson said. Those serving charter and private schools should report, she said. (Crossing guards work for the city.)

In a statement, Philadelphia Federation of Teachers President Jerry Jordan noted “the unprecedented nature of this issue and the myriad challenges it has presented for staff, students, and families,” especially at the end of the school year when “parents and loved ones [have] an irreplaceable opportunity to see their students shine.”

He also said that the union “has ensured that any staff who are unable to report [Friday] will not be penalized for their absence.”

Students and staff will also not be penalized for absences on Thursday, the district said.

Mayor Jim Kenney and city Health Commissioner Cheryl Bettigole said Thursday that non-emergency city personnel would not work outdoors Friday, which impacts services such as trash collection and routine road maintenance.

The city canceled all outdoor recreation department activities, but said it was keeping open recreation centers, describing them as “a safe indoor alternative during periods of poor air quality.”

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

Philadelphia school officials urge students, staff to stay indoors due to ‘Code Red’ air quality

2023-06-07T17:14:19+00:00

Philadelphia school district officials are urging students and staff to remain indoors and limit time outside as wildfire smoke from Canada continues to permeate the city and create unhealthy air conditions across the Northeast.

School buildings will remain open in Philadelphia, but Christina Clark, a district spokesperson , said in a statement Wednesday afternoon that “extended outside activities,” including field trips and field days, “should be postponed.”

Clark said school field trips, recess and all outside activities should be moved indoors or canceled.

Clark also said the district’s athletics office “will support schools in rescheduling outdoor athletic games that were scheduled for today.”

The statement comes as the Philadelphia Department of Public Health issued a warning that the city’s air quality designation has been changed from “Code Orange” to “Code Red.” City public health officials said the air is “unhealthy to breathe,” and some members of the general public — especially the very young and those with preexisting health issues — may experience “more serious health effects.”

She noted the district “will continue to follow guidance from the City, and will provide updates if the air quality status changes today or later this week.”

According to data from the University of Pennsylvania, 21% of Philadelphia children have asthma — more than double the national rate.

City health officials say residents should “strongly consider” canceling outdoor events; avoid exercising outdoors; wear an N-95 or KN-95 mask if going outside is unavoidable; avoid areas where air pollution may be high, like main streets or highways; close all windows and doors to minimize air pollution in the home; and use fans inside.

Officials have issued similar warnings to schools in New Jersey and New York City.

This is not the first environmental concern to impact Philadelphia students and teachers this school year. Last week, 90 schools in the city closed due to excessive heat, and several buildings over the past few months have closed following the discovery of damaged asbestos.

Clark said although Wednesday’s weather is warm, “the District does not expect indoor temperatures to exceed levels that would warrant early dismissal.”

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

Less than 1% of Philadelphia students are using the district’s tutoring programs

2023-06-01T18:00:00+00:00

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Less than 1% of Philadelphia students are using district tutoring programs, even as test scores remain stubbornly low and pandemic recovery remains an urgent issue.

As of April, 1,230 students at 114 schools were participating in district-sanctioned, after-school tutoring funded by COVID relief aid. That’s less than 1% of the approximately 197,300 students in 329 charter and traditional public schools in the district, according to the latest available data.

Education experts say that high-dosage tutoring, where students meet in small groups with a regular tutor, is among the most effective strategies to accelerate learning and help struggling students reach their academic goals. But the lack of student participation in Philadelphia reflects a nationwide challenge: Even as schools spent billions of federal COVID relief money on tutoring, only a small fraction of students across the country received those services.

District officials aren’t sure why its tutoring program, which is free for the district’s K-12 students, isn’t reaching more of them.

Marissa Orbanek, a spokesperson for the Philadelphia school district, said the district recognizes its numbers haven’t been impressive, but said “we are eager to use the feedback from this first-year program to evolve it and make it better.”

“While we are glad we provided 1,230 students with access to free tutoring services that they never had access to before, with an initiative in its first year of implementation, there’s always room for improvement,” Orbanek said.

A survey of the nation’s largest districts by Chalkbeat and The Associated Press from earlier this year found some parents said they didn’t know tutoring was an option or didn’t think their children needed it. Some school systems found it difficult to hire tutors and others said they kept their tutoring programs small on purpose to focus on students with the greatest needs.

Orbanek said for next school year, the district is “focused on intentionally expanding our reach so as many students as possible” have access to the tutoring programs.

The district Office of Student Life, which oversees the program, will partner with tutoring vendors and other district offices, to “make improvements and increase access to and use of our centralized tutoring services,” Orbanek said.

“We also plan to increase overall awareness about the available programming and its benefits to students and to intentionally target specific schools based on student growth data,” Orbanek said.

But with federal COVID relief dollars — the primary way these tutoring programs were funded — set to expire in 2024, it remains unclear whether these efforts can scale before the money runs out. Philadelphia school officials have repeatedly pointed out that the district lacks the money to accomplish many of their goals.

According to district budget data for the 2022-23 school year, the district set aside up to $3 million for three tutoring vendors: Catapult Learning, Focus Care FEV, and Tutor Me Education. It also earmarked another $1.4 million for “in-person monitoring” of tutoring programs in schools.

The district has said it intends to use $350 million of its $1.8 billion federal COVID stimulus funds over four years — from 2022 to 2026 — on “an array” of pandemic recovery efforts including tutoring, summer learning programs, after-school programs, and before-care/school programs.

Catapult Learning was allocated up to $808,884, Focus Care FEV could receive up to $576,000 and Tutor Me Education was slated for up to $1,620,000. Representatives from Tutor Me Education and Focus Care FEV did not respond to requests for comment on their programs.

Vince Mazzio, who worked in the Philadelphia school district before becoming vice president of operations at Catapult Learning, said the situation in Philadelphia is comparable to what they’re seeing in other states.

“I’m encouraged with the numbers we’ve had,” Mazzio said in an interview. “It’s not been something where we’re alarmed at all.”

Mazzio said there’s an “early adopter versus late adopter” process that happens with tutoring programs and he thinks “we’re seeing that play out here.”

“In Philadelphia, parents are kind of saying, ‘Hey, who are these companies? What’s the program about? What can I expect? What can my kids expect?’ And so I think it’s a fairly typical kind of runway here,” Mazzio said.

The company meets with the district around once a week to brainstorm how to get more students enrolled and how to adjust the sessions to make them more flexible for families, Mazzio said.

Student participation has increased in the tutoring programs since the school year started. Between October 11, 2022 and November 28, 2022, for example, only 614 students participated in the tutoring program, district data shows.

But capacity isn’t the problem, he said.

“Nobody who comes to us is excluded,” Mazzio said. “We will find a spot for everyone.”

Still, Philadelphia also struggled to get students and families involved in tutoring before this school year.

During the 2021-22 school year, before Catapult and the other vendors secured contracts, only some 225 in grades 3-12 were “rostered” for tutoring services by district teachers in math and English in an after-school program, district spokesperson Christina Clark said in an email.

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

Passing a budget, praising a plan, telling a charter school no: Philadelphia’s long board meeting

2023-05-26T16:17:26+00:00

At a jam-packed meeting running deep into Thursday night, Philadelphia’s Board of Education adopted the district’s budget, reviewed Superintendent Tony Watlington’s proposed strategic plan, rejected a charter school application, and more.

But while Watlington presented a hopeful vision for the district through his strategic plan, dubbed “Accelerate Philly,” the running theme of the meeting was doing more with less. Officials said without more funding and resources, it would be nearly impossible to accomplish some of their loftiest goals.

Asked by a board member if the district has the staffing to make all of the programs in his strategic plan a reality, Watlington replied: “The short answer is no.”

“We don’t have the resources and the infrastructure” to accomplish everything the district needs to do, Watlington said. He added his administration is looking at how they can “massage” the resources the district has “before we ask for more,” from the state.

Still, board member Leticia Egea-Hinton said Watlington’s five-year strategic plan “certainly fills me with not just hope, but expectation” that the district can make gains in student achievement, safety, and well-being.

Board praises strategic plan work from educators, students

Watlington presented to board members the same summary of his five-year strategic plan his office published on Wednesday. After members of the public implored the superintendent and the board to release the plan to the public before discussing and voting on it, the board delayed its vote on whether to adopt “Accelerate Philly” from Thursday’s meeting until June 1.

One of the plan’s most notable elements is its year-round school pilot; Democratic mayoral nominee Cherelle Parker supports a move to year-round schooling in some form. Other proposals in Watlington’s blueprint include:

Replacing all security cameras at the 150 schools that have them.
Piloting a controversial “Opengate weapons detection” system for middle schools.
Expanding the Safe Path Program where adults are hired to monitor the streets surrounding schools to ensure students can walk home safely.
Recruiting and retaining certified school nurses for all schools.
Launching a “two-way communication system” to respond to parent and community member inquiries. Watlington said that many community members have complained they would reach out to the district and never hear back. Under the new two-way system, Watlington said, everyone who reaches out should expect a response.

The plan also proposes expanding the ninth grade On-Track (also referred to as Success Networks) program in an effort to boost graduation rates and reduce the number of students who drop out. According to Watlington, 3,609 students have dropped out of Philadelphia schools this academic year so far. As of October 1, 2022, total enrollment in Philadelphia public schools was 197,288, according to district data.

Board President Reginald Streater and other members largely praised the plan on Thursday and acknowledged the “sweat equity” from educators, students, administrators, and community members that went into writing the plan.

Board member Lisa Salley asked how the district will track its progress putting the plan into action. Watlington said he will create a new team within his office and will employ “external folks” to “advise a small and minimal staff” who will make sure the plan is carried out.

Watlington said he intends to give an update every January on how the district is making progress on the plan.

Board member Chau Wing Lam, speaking first in Chinese, also drew attention to the fact that there is nothing in the plan about “cultivating the diversity of the students in our system.” Lam said she would have liked to see specific attention paid to improving the district’s delivery of language offerings.

New $4.45 billion budget funds teachers, counselors

Watlington’s long-term vision got an early boost from the board’s Thursday vote to approve a $4.45 billion budget for fiscal 2024 that includes funding to:

Hire additional counselors for the highest-need schools.
Add 15 new safety officer positions.
Hire more general education teachers and special education teachers.
Purchase the new two-way communications system Watlington has touted among other costs.

Still, district officials said the money they have is not nearly enough to fund the district’s needs. Estimates from the Education Law Center and Public Interest Law Center have said “fair funding” for the city’s schools would require an additional annual funding of $1.1 billion and $318 million from the state and city, respectively.

And making progress on all of Watlington’s proposals in his strategic plan will become more difficult as the district approaches an anticipated fiscal cliff after 2024 when federal COVID relief money is scheduled to run out, Chief Financial Officer Michael Herbstman warned.

Millions in spending for new curriculum, tech, admissions

The board also voted to approve more than 70 separate items, including:

$50 million in contracts with various vendors for new curriculum in math and language arts.
$72 million for Apple and PC computers for all district instructional staff, school leaders, students and staff.
$289,000 for Accenture, LLP to conduct an audit on the district’s much-maligned lottery admission process at selective schools.
$500,000 to Teach For America to hire new teachers.
Millions more for summer programming, special education services, and other items.

The full list of action items can be found on the board website here.

The board also voted to approve an agreement with the city to reopen West Philadelphia’s Sayre Pool, which has been at the center of a citywide debate over swimming access for Black and brown children.

Board rejects charter high school application again

Notably absent from the strategic plan presentation was any board discussion of charter schools.

As written, “Accelerate Philly” does not include any proposals, programs, or policies specific to charter schools, although some initiatives appear to be broadly inclusive of all schools under district purview.

Charter expenditures in the district are increasing at “a much greater rate” than expenditures on traditional public schools, board member Joyce Wilkerson noted.

Watlington subsequently said the “elephant in the room” is that charter enrollment is rising as traditional public school enrollment is falling.

However, the school board voted Thursday to deny Global Leadership Academy International Charter High School’s application to open a standalone high school this August. The board cited issues with curriculum and dissatisfaction with the performance of other charter schools in the city under the Global Leadership Academy (GLA) name.

This is the second time the board has denied GLA’s application to open a high school. The school revised and resubmitted its application in April.

Peng Chao, the acting director of the district’s Charter Schools Office, said despite applying to open the new school for the 2023-2024 academic year, Global Leadership Academy did not “identify a school leader or include updated information regarding staffing a brand new charter school.”

There is a “growing concern about the viability of those start dates,” Chao said.

Chao also said the two current GLA K-8 schools in Philadelphia had “mixed outcomes” when it comes to academics. The application said the proposed high school should be evaluated as a separate entity from those schools.

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

Philadelphia school leaders defend their asbestos response: ‘No simple fix’

2023-05-23T21:23:34+00:00

At least 293 of 300 Philadelphia district buildings — most but not all of them schools — contain asbestos, officials said Tuesday, although inspectors have reexamined nearly all of those facilities for the potentially dangerous material since October 2021.

During a press briefing about asbestos in district facilities, Victoria Flemming, the interim executive director of the Office of Environmental Management, said that out of those 293 buildings, 277 schools have been reinspected, and six of those were schools that the district subsequently closed, she said. The goal is to inspect the remaining 16 by the end of August, she said.

The more inspections the district conducts, the more asbestos is likely to be found, she said, but “this is a step in the right direction. This is the school district taking the additional time and resources to address what has been a longstanding issue within the Philadelphia region.”

“There’s no simple fix,” Flemming said.

The district’s update comes in the wake of criticism from parents, advocates, and others about the district’s handling of the environmental hazard. The abrupt shutdowns of Building 21, Frankford High School, Mitchell Elementary School, and other schools have created major disruptions for students and families. They have also called into question the accuracy of previous inspection reports that indicated schools did not face asbestos-related dangers.

Flemming said that more than 200 of the district’s buildings were built before 1978, when builders commonly included asbestos in construction, and that many of them also contain lead paint, another potential hazard. The average age of district buildings is 73 years.

Under the Asbestos Hazard Emergency Response Act, or AHERA, the federal law regulating asbestos containment, every school must be inspected every three years, with “periodic surveillance” every six months. Flemming said the district at any given time has between eight to 12 inspection teams of two people each, depending on availability of personnel.

In order to be in full AHERA compliance, the district would need to average 50 inspections a month, she said, but the district currently lacks sufficient staffing and resources to do that, Flemming said.

“Our intent is to add more inspection teams,” she said, but added that meeting the AHERA requirements in full “is still a work in progress.”

The district has a three-year, $24.2 million contract with Tetra Tech, starting in 2022, a consultant and engineering firm, which is managing its inspections. The district also hired DeLuca Advisory & Consulting Services — where Flemming previously worked — to help the district manage the AHERA inspections and related record-keeping and data-tracking, which is a massive undertaking.

For instance, DeLuca is making sure that all inspections included the mandatory number of required samples from the required variety of locations. One large school can have as many as 3,000 building materials that require assessment and documentation. And the district is also studying the records of past inspections to make sure that they are valid, although Flemming said limited staffing and resources have made record-keeping a challenge.

“What we have actively done is gone back through our archive to confirm they have the correct number of samples based on today’s protocols,” she said. The district is also scrutinizing records “per floor, per room, per ceiling” to make sure that all necessary areas were inspected, she added.

Oz Hill, the district’s deputy chief operating officer, said the district organized Tuesday’s briefing in order to “communicate the depth and breadth of the challenges we face.”

The district’s staffing challenges and churn extend to the top of its organizational chart, and two key new administrators are set to join.

Former Deputy Superintendent of Operations Uri Monson and Chief Operating Officer Reggie McNeil left in January to join Gov. Josh Shapiro’s administration. In addition, Deputy Superintendent for Academic Services ShaVon Savage and Chief Talent Officer Larissa Shambaugh announced their departures in March. Shambaugh has already left and Savage will leave by the end of this month.

On Monday, Superintendent Tony Watlington announced the hiring of two new top administrators: Jeremy Grant-Skinner as deputy superintendent of talent, strategy and culture, and Nyashawana Francis-Thompson as chief of curriculum and instruction.

Grant-Skinner comes from the Houston district, where he has been chief talent officer. Before that, he was a teacher and then chief human capital officer in Baltimore in charge of recruitment and teacher development.

Nyshawana Francis-Thompson, who has been the interim chief of curriculum and instruction, was named to the position permanently by Watlington.

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

Philadelphia 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.

Philadelphia student test scores, attendance, school climate ratings decline on district scorecard

2023-05-08T20:47:07+00:00

The latest “district scorecard” for Philadelphia schools highlights challenges the district faces in the pandemic’s wake, including test score declines, a sharp rise in students who are frequently absent, and deteriorating school climate scores.

The district, which released the scorecard Friday, reported declines in students’ scores in English, math, and science on state standardized tests in the 2021-22 school year. (A Chalkbeat analysis from last December revealed score drops on the state exams.) Student and teacher attendance rates were also down, though the district’s four-year graduation rate remains higher than it was before the pandemic.

The data was included in the district’s annual School Progress Report on Education and Equity (SPREE) released on Friday, along with comparable data from prior reports as far back as the 2012-13 school year. The district uses SPREE to measure test scores, access to Advanced Placement courses, racial disparities in school discipline, and other measures of equity.

In a letter accompanying the report’s release, Superintendent Tony Watlington said the SPREE is “closely aligned” with the school board’s Goals and Guardrails, which the district adopted in 2020 and include several district-wide targets related to reading and math scores, as well as measures of college and career readiness, by 2026. The Goals and Guardrails also highlight the “conditions needed in each school to empower all students to succeed in and beyond the classroom.”

“I think this data does show that in many of the areas we are missing the targets,” Tonya Wolford, the district’s chief of evaluation, research, and accountability, told reporters on Friday. But she cautioned that the targets set in the district’s Goals and Guardrails were set before the pandemic started and haven’t been adjusted since.

District officials cautioned that state test scores were not available for comparison for 2019-20 and 2020-21, because these standardized exams were halted or abbreviated during the COVID-driven school closures.

According to the district scorecard, 34% of students in grades 3-8 met state standards for English last year, down from 36% in 2018-19. Math outcomes were more dire: Only 17% of students met the proficiency standard in 2021-22, down from 22% in 2018-19.

In science, 37% of students in grades 4-8 met standards, down from 40% pre-pandemic. For those career and technical students entering the workforce, the district reported that around 43% of 12th grade CTE students were “meeting industry standards” in their respective fields; the district did not report this statistic pre-COVID.

The district is also having trouble getting students to show up to class.

Only 37% of students attended at least 95% of instructional days in 2021-22, according to the district scorecard, and 20% of students reported attending fewer than 80% of instructional days. In 2018-19, 47% of students attended at least 95% of instructional days, and just 10% attended fewer than 80% of instructional days. Student attendance became a nationwide concern during the pandemic.

Teacher attendance also dipped last year: The scorecard said 53% of teachers were recorded as attending at least 95% of days in 2021-22, down from 61% in 2018-2019.

And school climate ratings from parents, teachers, and students all declined from 2020-21 to 2021-22. (The district did not report these climate scores before 2020-21.) Some have worried that declines in student attendance are due at least in part to COVID’s negative impact on school climates.

Not all the scorecard’s key measures showed a decline. The district’s four-year graduation rate was 71% in 2021-22, compared to 69% in 2018-2019.

The SPREE also provided a breakdown of suspensions showing students of color and those with economic disadvantages were suspended at much greater rates than their White, Asian and wealthier counterparts.

The vast majority — 86% — of suspensions were given to students who are economically disadvantaged. Additionally, 71% of suspensions were administered to Black students, 17% of suspensions were given to Latino students, and 31% went to students with Individualized Education Programs, or IEPs.

Going forward, Wolford said she would “definitely” like for the school board to reevaluate their goals for Philadelphia students. She said the districts had targets for “several years on the books that we had no way to meet.” Now, she added, “we are just picking up as if it was business as usual.”

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

Philadelphia’s inaugural drumline exposition let students share a ‘beautiful masterpiece’

2023-05-05T20:45:22+00:00

When Jesse Mell first proposed putting a drumline program in every Philadelphia public school, he said people laughed at him.

An important milestone to that goal would be getting every student drumline group in the city on one stage for a performance. Resources were limited and it would take an enormous amount of time, organization, and patience.

But Thursday night at the inaugural citywide Drumlines Exposition, the beat of more than 100 student drummers from over 20 schools carried out of the Philadelphia High School for Girls auditorium and echoed in the SEPTA station across the street.

For Mell, coordinator of the drumline programs in the Philadelphia school district, it was an impossible dream realized. Philadelphia public schools have been clawing their way back from a “doomsday” budget in the 2013-14 school year that saw funding for the district’s arts department slashed, leaving many schools with only one art or music teacher if they were lucky.

Nonprofit organizations like Musicopia, a co-host of the expo event and where Mell previously worked as a contractor, stepped in offering a free after-school percussion program open to students in grades 3-12. This year, for the first time, drumline will be offered as a summer program for students in grades 6-12.

“When I joined the district, I just saw kids just not being treated with respect and … that makes me want to fight for them,” said Mell, who is also the former artistic director of drumlines at Musicopia. “Even in those difficult situations [when we] were under-resourced, with a lot of violence in the neighborhood, a lot of conflict in the schools, a lot of racism going on in the schools … I could show up, and we could be okay in our little space.”

For the students, the performance was a point of pride and the promise of a career.

Sixteen-year-old Paris Parretta said drumming is more than just noise to him: “It’s my life.” He hopes it will earn him a spot in the drumline at Michigan State University. The West Philadelphia High School student said being able to make music and being able to play it “and have this outlet to push myself further in my career, it means everything to me.”

Parretta’s favorite part of the night? Playing alongside a city icon.

“Seeing West Philly Elmo was a great experience,” Parretta said.

Philly Elmo, a Philadelphia icon, walks down the aisle during the Drumlines Exposition.

Mell said drumline is different from traditional band and orchestra programs because it provides an easy access point for students — especially Black students in neighborhood schools starved of resources — who may not have had the opportunity to take up an instrument early in their school experience.

“I think that the pandemic taught us a lot. It taught us that … we needed to look beyond the traditional band and orchestra program to provide ensembles [and] access for anybody at any point,” Mell said.

In each small drum ensemble, Mell said, there are three parts that a student can play that are level one, level two, or level three; level three is the hardest.

Drumming is also more accessible to non-musicians who can learn to play music without needing to understand notation, Mell said. “Bass drummers can just vocalize their part and move to a steady beat and therefore internalize it. They don’t need to be able to read sheet music to participate.”

Gabriela Delvalle, a 15-year-old Edison High School student, said for her, drumline is about feeling, rhythm, and timing.

“Music in general makes me feel so happy. It’s the way that everyone syncs and coordinates and it makes a beautiful masterpiece,” she said.

Mell said the students at the expo event represented a small portion of the “probably 1,000” marching percussionists in the Philadelphia public school system. He said it’s his mission to grow the drumline program into “something that can be viable in every school.”

But with the ongoing pressures of significant funding needs, school closures due to asbestos, and gun violence, Mell said giving time, space and resources for arts education — especially drumline — is crucial.

Joel Gomez, 14, a student at The City School, a private Christian school, said drumline has given him an outlet to play with students from across Philadelphia and the discipline of regular practice.

“It’s like speaking a language from your drum,” Gomez said. “It’s literally speaking. When you do your solos you’ve really gotta put yourself out there and stand out from other people.”

Correction: May 8, 2023: A previous version of this story misstated Mell’s goal for the district: He proposed putting a drumline program in every Philadelphia public school.

This story has also been updated to clarify Mell’s employment status at Musicopia.

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

This North Philadelphia paraeducator is ‘teaching without restrictions’

2023-05-05T13:55:57+00:00

Sign up for Chalkbeat’s free monthly newsletter How I Teach to get inspiration, news, and advice for — and from — educators.

Leah Wood was tired of Burger King “playing” with the idea of making her a manager, so when an acquaintance told her the Philadelphia school district was hiring paraprofessionals, she thought she’d give it a try — even though she “absolutely hated” school growing up.

Now, she’s nearing 16 years in the classroom and is in love with her job as a special education assistant at Feltonville School of Arts and Sciences in North Philadelphia. She’s also the president of Para Power Philly, an organizing group that provides resources and support to paraeducators in the city.

“I hope that people understand that paraprofessionals are essential. We are not second-class citizens,” Wood said. “We are really important and we love our jobs.”

Over the years, Wood has shepherded 275 “babies,” as she calls her students, through middle school. She’s helped them tackle difficult reading assignments, craft intricate dioramas, grapple with bullying, and find a safe space to express themselves.

Each one of those 275 students, she said, has individual needs that Wood had to learn to navigate with respect and compassion.

“Just like how Burger King has people that were your regulars, I have kids that are my regulars,” Wood said. “The one thing that stuck with me from Burger King was you always listen, apologize, satisfy and thank … it shows a level of respect when you’re talking to people, because you’re giving them a chance to express what the problem is.”

Wood talked to Chalkbeat about shifting the conversation about paraprofessionals, pushing students to achieve what they thought was impossible, and the self-care power of knitting.

This interview has been lightly edited for length and clarity.

What’s your favorite part about your job? What is something that’s kept you doing it for as long as you have?

It’s when people think that they can’t do something and I’m able to break it down and they realize that they can do it, and that they know the answer. That is my favorite moment. When they’re like ‘Ms. Leah, I can do it!’ I say, ‘There you go. I told you you could do that.’ When they think they can’t get it and they’re fussing and fighting you and it just clicks in their head. That’s the best.

This year the school district is reading “Heroes, Gods and Monsters” for the sixth, seventh and eighth graders, but we don’t get those books because they say our kids are so far behind they need corrective reading and math. I had to go find the books and I had my students read the books together or read a couple stories out of the book. We also just finished reading “Percy Jackson.” I don’t play with my kids. I don’t believe in ‘I can’t.’

What do you think is a common misconception about paraeducators? What’s something that you wish people knew?

A lot of times people think we’re glorified babysitters and that we don’t really work and that we’re not educated, that we don’t try and just sit around and do nothing and be on our phones all day.

We work hard to educate these kids. We are assisting our teachers. We’re not just sitting there playing with blocks. We’re trying to get them to be able to go out into the world, to be able to read, write, and count. Some of us actually lift kids, especially students with multiple disabilities, we’re lifting these children who are like 100-150 pounds.

What does it mean to you to be a paraprofessional?

I call it teaching without the restrictions. I don’t have those restrictions of standards or a need to follow certain pacing. ‘What if this is on the PSSA [exam]?’ I don’t have to worry about that. For example, with my reading group, I noticed that our kids did not get science and social studies. They’re already doing corrective reading, so I thought ‘I can do something with them.’ I went out and I found a program at the school district about climate change. So we learned about climate change. It ties in because it’s science, yes, but you’ve got to read to do it.

The students love it because it’s different. A lot of them don’t like the corrective reading. They say the stories sound stupid, they’re crazy, they’re boring, they’re out of touch. And that’s understandable. So I’ll go find something that relates to their life then.

What’s your favorite way to get students engaged in their learning?

Combining reading and art, because I’m kind of crafty. No matter what we’re reading, there’s a piece of drawing or collage involved — if I could teach them to sew I would. We’ll do a diorama of stories we read and then ask them to tell me the summary of the story. We’re learning about the water cycle so I say ‘create me a video or write me a song about the water cycle.’ I’m putting it all together.

What’s something happening in the North Philly community that affects what goes on inside your classroom?

Right now, it’s the bullying. Our kids are not bullied a lot, but some of them are bullied on the bus. They’re learning about bullying from other students, and they sometimes try to bully each other, which is wild because there’s not that many kids in the classroom.

But they’re also recognizing that our classroom is a safe space. There are many times that kids that have been bullied in a general education classroom will come to our room and they’ll just sit because they know they won’t get picked on. They know they’re always welcome.

I think it’s gotten worse since the pandemic. These children right now are just like, ‘I don’t care. Since I’m hurt. Everybody’s going to hurt.’ It’s not all of them, but it’s enough of them where it’s having an impact like a ripple. I just wonder where we went wrong as adults. What did we miss?

Since the pandemic, you’ve got a lot of trauma. You’ve seen people dying, you’ve got family members that died. You’re like ‘there’s no food or money.’ So you don’t care.

How do you grapple with that? How do you teach students to care?

It all starts small, with them as individuals. I say ‘if you don’t like yourself, you’re not gonna like anybody else.’

You spend your days trying to help others, how do you take care of yourself when you’re not at work?

I read obsessively. I read a lot of urban fiction and urban romance novels. Right now,I’m finishing up “Not Paved for Us: Black Educators and Public School Reform in Philadelphia” by Camika Royal and next up is “Unearthing Joy” by Gholdy Muhammad.

I also taught myself to knit and you will always see me with a ball of yarn and two needles. I knitted a sweater for my teacher’s daughter, and I made it like a rainbow. It was so cute.

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

Asbestos closed their Philadelphia high school. They still put on a show.

2023-05-01T18:52:57+00:00

Asbestos scare or not, the show must go on.

When Philadelphia’s Frankford High School closed in early April due to the discovery of loose, dangerous asbestos in the building, a cast and crew of more than two dozen students were working hard on a production of “In the Heights,” the musical about the hopes, dreams, and travails of young people living in the barrio in Washington Heights near the George Washington Bridge in New York City.

The show’s music director Rebecca Wizov couldn’t believe it. Of all the challenges that come with working in the Philadelphia school district, this was a new one. The students had been rehearsing since December.

But Wizov, a Frankford teacher, and Frankford Principal Michael Calderone sprang into action. “We went into full damage control, finding a venue to switch the performance to,” Wizov said.

Last week, their efforts paid off as the students put on an exuberant production of the show — which put “Hamilton” creator Lin-Manuel Miranda on the map and was co-written by Philadelphia native Quiara Alegría Hudes — at Kensington Creative and Performing Arts High School before ecstatic audiences of family and friends. They staged three performances on Thursday, Friday, and Saturday.

The journey was a “crazy roller coaster,” said Jaden Colon-Torres, a sophomore who starred as Usnavi, the open-hearted bodega owner who longs for his native Dominican Republic. “But we made it happen.”

After Frankford closed, the students first moved rehearsals to nearby Harding Middle School. Then, when the weather turned nice, they switched to the grand elevated space outside the main entrance of Frankford, a mammoth, nearly century-old building on Oxford Avenue.

The original plan was to put on the show at Fels High School, a little over a mile away from Frankford (which is slated to stay closed the rest of this school year as the district seeks an alternative space to resume in-person learning). Shortly after the school building closed on April 7, the district sent over vans to move the set pieces, costumes and props, but none of the school employees were allowed inside the building to retrieve them. Workers in protective gear were sent over to help.

“We had to make a detailed list.” Wizov said. “That was hard, but we were able to do it.”

The vans were on their way to Fels, Calderone said, when he got word that the sound system there wasn’t working properly. Calderone then called Patricia McDermott, Kensington CAPA’s principal who had previously worked with him at Frankford, begging her to let Frankford’s students perform the show at her school instead. McDermott agreed.

The vans “had left the parking lot,” he said. “We rerouted them.”

Kensington CAPA is more than four miles away from Frankford on Front Street, but thankfully, Wizov said, “super accessible by SEPTA.”

As soon as Kensington CAPA was secured, “We assembled to be able to do a Saturday rehearsal” at the new space mere weeks before the show was scheduled to open, Wizov said. The district let the school keep the vans to help transport students. Wizov and the other directors drove the vans themselves.

Calderone, meanwhile, was totally on board but also disappointed. He had been working for seven years to get a new sound system installed at Frankford, and it was finally finished six weeks ago. He was looking forward to testing it out on this show.

It wasn’t to be.

“That one hurt,” he said.

Reviving a Philadelphia school’s arts programs

Since Calderone arrived at Frankford in 2015, he had worked hard to rebuild the school’s arts program, a casualty of severe cutbacks forced on the school district a decade ago when former Gov. Tom Corbett and state GOP lawmakers slashed education spending.

“When I came we only had one visual arts teacher,” he said. “Our music teacher resigned right before the school year started.”

Not “an arts kid” himself — he played football at Archbishop John Carroll High School— Calderone gradually brought back instrumental and vocal music teachers, as well as instructors in visual arts, digital media, and ceramics, as education spending and the district’s budget saw somewhat better days during the administration of Democratic Gov. Tom Wolf.

“I know how important it is for kids,” Calderon said. “I wanted them to have it. Ms. Wizov and [instrumental teacher Brittany Cramer] built this program from the ground up. I hired both as brand new teachers. It’s definitely something I tried to prioritize.”

Rebecca Wizov, the show’s music director and a Frankford High School teacher, during the show’s curtain call. Wizov and other school staff scrambled to make sure the students’ production of “In the Heights” could go on after the school building closed after the discovery of dangerous asbestos.

Dawn Madden has taught social studies at Frankford for two decades, and at Friday night’s show, the second of the three performances, she was helping take tickets at the door.

For the first seven or eight years of her time at Frankford, the school put on a play or musical every year, she said. After the school’s music teachers left, an English teacher organized a production a few times, she said. “Then, for 10 years, it stopped,” she recalled.

Under Wizov and Cramer, the school eased back into theater, starting in 2017-18 with a musical showcase. Then the next year, Frankford put on “Footloose.” “You’re a Good Man, Charlie Brown” was scheduled for spring 2020, but then COVID hit. Last year, the school put on “High School Musical.”

Bringing back the annual play or musical has been transformative, Madden said.

“I saw some of those kids that weren’t participating in anything, I saw them light up,” she said. “That spark was just back. It’s an entirely different vibe than it was for those 10-ish years when … we were just sports and academics. Those kids who weren’t in sports felt kind of left out.”

She noted that special education students have also gotten involved; at Frankford, 31% of students have Individualized Education Programs, or IEPs. One student in an autistic support class is a member of the ensemble and enthusiastically demonstrated his break dancing skills.

“It’s just wonderful because all the students can access it in some way,” Madden said.

Frank Machos, executive director of the district’s arts programming, said about half the district’s 50 high schools regularly put on plays or musicals. “It ebbs and flows,” he said, with the availability of teachers and other staff, and their interests and talents.

Frankford does not have a drama teacher, but math teacher Michael Sherman directed. “He’s a bit of a thespian himself,” Calderone explained.

Frankford, with more than 900 students, is about half Latino and nearly half Black, with a smattering of white students. With “In the Heights,” students get to play characters much like themselves and people in their families, like the kindly Abuela who raised Usnavi. For example, Nina Rosario, the lead female role, has “made it out” of the neighborhood, but comes home from Stanford in despair that she will lose her scholarship (although it all ends happily).

Dreamerly Jean Louis, a junior who played Nina, immigrated from Haiti in 2020 and speaks three languages, although not Spanish.

“When [the asbestos scare] all started, I thought the show was going to get canceled,” Louis said. She said she is “just grateful” they were able to pull it off. While she has sung in public before, “this was my first time doing a long show.”

Sophomore Zion Owens played Benny, one of the main characters. As a freshman last year, he starred as Troy in “High School Musical.” For this show, “We did so much rehearsal, so much effort, we had to make sure it was perfect,” he said.

Colon-Torres had no theatrical experience whatsoever before taking on his demanding role. When he auditioned, he feared he would not be cast at all.

“This is my first time ever, first time on stage, singing, talking, everything like that,” he said. “It’s been nerve-wracking, but it’s been one of the most exciting things in my life.”

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.

Could an independent agency solve Philadelphia’s school facilities crisis?

2023-04-26T09:15:00+00:00

As Philadelphia schools face a growing asbestos crisis, one member of the City Council says ‘the moment is now’ to create an independent authority to handle school building construction and renovation instead of the school district.

Isaiah Thomas, who chairs the City Council’s education committee, told reporters he will introduce a resolution Thursday to hold hearings on creating such an authority.

Thomas said in a briefing on Tuesday he hopes having an independent body manage public school facilities would build trust with state lawmakers who have been wary about sending billions of dollars to repair and upgrade Philadelphia schools. And with state coffers flush with $8 billion in surplus funding for the upcoming budget cycle, Thomas said the city might not get another chance to get the money needed to update classrooms, remediate buildings laden with lead and asbestos, and build new and modern schools fit for students.

“If we can’t get this done in this budget cycle, I’m not sure that we’ll ever get the type of down payment that we need to really put a dent in the issue,” Thomas said. “If we wait until June, or July, it might actually be too late.”

Philly students, parents, and educators: How has asbestos in your school affected your educational experience? We want to hear your story.

Thomas’ proposal comes after several Philadelphia schools closed in recent weeks due to failing infrastructure that revealed damaged asbestos, and these disruptions have left families on edge. Superintendent Tony Watlington has said repeatedly the district anticipates more damaged asbestos will likely be found, but the possible scope of these shutdowns remains unclear. The asbestos problems underscore broader concerns about aging and decrepit facilities that have angered students and teachers for years. The average school building in the district is more than 70 years old.

The asbestos-driven closures have also created tension between the district and some city officials (including Thomas) who say school leaders haven’t been sufficiently transparent about the problem.

The school district had a non-committal response to Thomas’ proposal, saying it looks forward “to continuing discussions about how to improve our facilities because all students and staff should have access to 21st century learning spaces.”

The school district estimates it needs $4.5 billion to address the most pressing structural needs. Thomas is asking Harrisburg for $5 billion over five years to fix up schools, and he’s asking the district for a “safe facilities plan” detailing the building needs and costs to demonstrate how that $5 billion would be spent.

Thomas said many of the details regarding how the new authority would be staffed, managed, and funded will have to be worked out. Functionally, Thomas said it could look something like the energy authority in the city.

But Board of Education President Reginald Streater said in a Tuesday statement the board’s current partnership with the nonprofit Philadelphia Industrial Development Corporation and the Philadelphia Authority For Industrial Development has been helping with school construction and facilities issues. Streater said the priority is to get more funding.

“With the infusion of more sustained, long-term funding the District has the opportunity to accelerate the work that needs to be done,” he said.

According to Thomas’ resolution, the new authority would have the ability to “bond and manage the school facilities” modernization process.

Thomas said his office is also in talks with “experts” to see how other cities and states have handled similar authorities, like New York City’s construction authority.

Across the Delaware River in New Jersey, the Schools Development Authority — an independent agency tasked with funding and managing construction for some of the poorest districts in the state — has been plagued by political scandals. The authority is also essentially out of money, and New Jersey lawmakers are now looking to overhaul it.

But Thomas said he is “optimistic” Philadelphia can get it right.

According to Thomas, some lawmakers in Harrisburg have been hesitant to spend more money to improve Philadelphia’s school buildings because the district has been accused of misspending money in the past, a charge the district has denied.

Thomas said what legislators want to see is “consistency” and a stable system that could guarantee money is spent responsibly.

“In order to get resources in this moment, we have to show Harrisburg a certain level of consistency, and reliability,” Thomas said.

Thomas’ proposed authority would build on an idea former Councilmember Maria Quiñones-Sánchez championed last year.

“We’re not going to pretend that this is a concept that we created,” Thomas said, “but what we are going to do is try to grab the bull by the horns and pull this thing across the finish line.”

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

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

Philadelphia school board approval of contracts worth $183 million prompts transparency debate

2023-04-21T19:31:43+00:00

Long after people had left the school district auditorium, Philadelphia’s school board voted Thursday night to approve roughly $183 million for vendor contracts, including $336,000 for a consulting group to improve the board’s communication with the public.

Those contracts covered school building repairs, IT and technology equipment, office supplies, preschool programs, and water and sewer systems.

For years, outspoken members of the public and some education advocates have demanded more transparency from the board when it comes to their appointments and deliberations. Now, with multiple schools closing due to damaged asbestos, and gun violence claiming the lives of 23 students and wounding another 84, the board’s public approach to these and other crucial issues could help determine whether Philadelphia’s next mayor reappoints some, all, or none of the board’s current members.

Not long after he took over the district last year, Superintendent Tony Watlington drew public ire when the board (at his request) hired a consulting firm for $450,000 to help with his transition and guide the creation of a long-term strategic plan for Philadelphia schools.

While the 54-item consent agenda ultimately passed with little debate, board members Lisa Salley and Cecelia Thompson raised concerns about the process behind the $336,000 communications contract with Public Consulting Group in particular.

Thompson said she “wasn’t even aware” that the board was going through a selection process for communications vendors.

“We dont keep minutes, there’s no written documentation on what occurs … there’s no accountability,” Thompson said. “That should be a public conversation, not this secret stuff.”

Salley noted that the district has often been accused of “lack of transparency.”

“Strategic communication in general is very poor for the board and the district as a whole,” Salley said.

Public Consulting Group did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Board Vice President Mallory Fix-Lopez said the contracts went through the usual request for proposal process. Several people from the board and district reviewed multiple vendor contracts, and ultimately decided to move forward with the ones that appeared on the consent agenda.

“The process is not over, we are in this final step of work, collectively making a decision,” Fix-Lopez said before the vote. “That is what happens when we vote for an action item.”

Funding for the contracts approved Thursday night came from a variety of sources including operating and capital funding from last year and next year’s budget as well as federal and state grants.

Board President Reginald Streater said the board followed the district’s procurement process “to the tee.”

Board member Leticia Egea-Hinton defended the Public Consulting Group contract and said the board needs urgent “help” connecting to the school community. “I don’t think we can wait much longer,” she said.

But those comments came too late to mollify Lisa Haver, founder of the Alliance for Philadelphia Public Schools and a frequent critic of the board’s transparency efforts. Speaking at Thursday’s board meeting during the public comment period, she blasted the communications spending, which included $881,500 for “customer service” with a group called K12 Insight, as well as the $336,000 contract.

She questioned why the district was spending such money “to assist professionals and board members to do what they were hired or appointed” to do.

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

$8 million for technology equipment through the state’s COSTARS cooperative purchasing program.
$11 million for replacing roofs at several schools
$32 million for “office supplies.”
$3.5 million to amend a contract with The Home Depot for “cleaning and custodial supplies.”
$9.3 million in contracts with the city water department and Vicinity Energy for water services and steam heat.
$79 million in federal and state grants for prekindergarten programs at community-based partner sites.
$6 million for boiler repairs.
$12 million to extend contracts with vendors doing HVAC repairs.

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

Damaged asbestos closed three Philadelphia schools this year. More could be coming.

2023-04-17T16:06:22+00:00

As Philadelphia education leaders confront a growing asbestos crisis, they also face a conundrum: The more they do to discover the extent of the problem and address it, the greater the impact on students.

And meanwhile, frustrated parents are demanding the district show them a way forward.

“What will be the plan in the future when these types of things occur?” said Sheila Johnson, whose daughter attends Building 21, which abruptly closed in March after the district discovered flaking asbestos and hasn’t reopened. “[District leaders] have already stated that yes, there may be other schools affected by this because of the older buildings. So what are you going to do?”

The recent discovery by inspectors that asbestos was routinely used in plaster in school buildings, which was not previously assumed, creates risk that the material could eventually become dangerous. And the accuracy of previous inspection reports that marked buildings safe with respect to asbestos has now been thrown into serious question.

Last week, Frankford High School and Mitchell Elementary School also closed their buildings to remediate flaking asbestos in plaster walls and ceilings. In letters to parents, district officials and the building principals said that both schools will remain closed for the rest of the school year and likely into the summer.

Such closures have spurred fears that a series of building shutdowns is looming in the district, where students are still trying to recover from disruptions to in-person learning caused by COVID. There’s also been a dispute between city and district officials about whether the district has kept parents and others adequately informed about asbestos-related issues, which have posed problems in aging Philadelphia schools for years.

After officials shuttered Building 21 — a small high school located in a 100-year-old former elementary school — due to damaged asbestos, most Building 21 students have been learning virtually. A few have opted for in-person learning at Strawberry Mansion High School, which is six miles away.

That virtual learning has not worked for many students.

“My daughter is sinking like a ship,” Johnson said of her 11th grader. She said virtual learning for two years during the pandemic pushed her child into a depression and now, the majority of her high school career will have been remote.

‘Incomplete or inaccurate’ reports on asbestos in schools

Scientific research has shown that breathing in asbestos fibers can cause certain diseases and increase the risk of certain cancers, including lung cancer and mesothelioma.

Previous estimates have determined that approximately 80% of Philadelphia schools were built prior to 1978 and are likely to contain asbestos. It was commonly incorporated into floor tiles, pipe insulation, and some paint and cement roofing in school buildings constructed prior to the 1970s.

A district statement on Friday said of the 321 school buildings in the city, 295 district buildings “have asbestos-containing materials.”

Undisturbed asbestos is not harmful, and it is only considered dangerous when it begins to flake. But other infrastructure problems — failing roofs, leaky windows, or faulty boilers that release steam — can compromise asbestos. And the district has suffered from years if not decades of deferred maintenance on buildings that on average are more than 70 years old — all of which makes the discovery that asbestos is also in most plaster more concerning.

Superintendent Tony Watlington said in a statement on April 7 that “in the coming weeks and months, we continue to anticipate that more damaged asbestos will be identified.” But the district’s facilities plan doesn’t say what it will do if more schools are closed for extended periods.

The most recent federally mandated report posted for Building 21 is from 2018-19, and showed asbestos in plaster at various locations, including the auditorium ceiling, but not throughout the school.

But the discovery of the material in plaster in Building 21 set off alarm bells, and spurred the district to retest in Frankford and Mitchell, the district said.

The plaster in Building 21 was for years marked safe by inspectors on building reports. The district now says those records were “incomplete or inaccurate,” throwing into question decades of inspection data.

Watlington, who is coming up on his first anniversary as superintendent, is facing a daunting challenge: The more the district investigates, the more damaged asbestos it’s likely to find. That means more school closures and asbestos remediation for a district that is already billions of dollars in arrears when it comes to facilities repairs, upgrades, and maintenance.

And according to the district’s facilities plan released late last month, 29% of its facilities workforce positions were vacant.

But what matters to Sonja Grant, another parent of a Building 21 student, is that “there was no consideration of parents” when the school first closed.

Grant said she wanted to respond to a survey, speak to school leaders at a roundtable, or otherwise open a dialogue with her school and the district.

But Grant said “they did not respect us enough or care enough to give us an option or ask ‘what would you like to see?’ or ‘how would you like us to move forward?’”

Philadelphia district response targeted by politicians

Asbestos is not a new issue for the district. In 2019 alone, several Philadelphia schools were forced to close because of damaged asbestos. In 2020, the district settled with a teacher who contracted mesothelioma for $850,000. And students and teachers have perennially fought for remediation efforts to make their buildings safe.

The federal Asbestos Hazardous Emergency Response Act, or AHERA, requires asbestos inspections in schools every three years. The AHERA reports, which are posted on the district website, say “NAD” — no asbestos detected — for most plaster walls and ceilings in Mitchell, Frankford, and Building 21.

Michelle Whitmer, an asbestos expert at The Mesothelioma Center who has written about the issue in Philadelphia schools for years, said plaster containing asbestos is considered a more dangerous type of asbestos product because of its “friability.” That means it can be easily crushed into a powder, releasing the dangerous fibers into the air.

That the plaster was originally noted as not containing asbestos is worrying, she said.

“To me that suggests that they may have not done proper testing to identify what was actually inside the material,” Whitmer said.

According to a district presentation to the City Council last month, the school system has a three-year, $24.2 million contract with Tetra Tech, a consulting and engineering firm, “to support and restructure the District’s Asbestos Hazard Emergency Response Act management program.” Tetra Tech took over management of the AHERA inspection process last August.

AHERA reports show Tetra Tech managed the Mitchell building inspection last December. Its report says no asbestos was detected in plaster walls and ceilings at the time. Investigators did detect asbestos in some floor tiles, pipe insulation and other areas.

Tetra Tech did not respond to several requests for comment.

In an April 7 statement, the district said identifying the problem is necessary and finding damaged asbestos is evidence of success.

“This is not an indication of the program failing, but rather the program is working to protect health and safety through the identification and management of environmental concerns,” the district said.

The statement also noted that the oldest buildings tend to have the most plaster, and that these buildings “have been prioritized in this plaster review.”

For some, that position represents an improvement in Philadelphia schools. Jerry Jordan, president of the Philadelphia Federation of Teachers, said Watlington is being more “transparent” than leaders have in the past.

“So much over the years, has been swept under the rug,” Jordan said in an interview. “The buildings have been neglected forever. And I know that that sounds like an exaggeration, but it really isn’t.”

Monique Braxton, a district spokesperson, declined to answer specific questions about long-term plans regarding asbestos removal and school closure.

But other power players in the city say the district has fallen short. Councilmember Isaiah Thomas, a Frankford graduate, has suggested the city might withhold district funding until it shares a detailed asbestos plan, and cautioned that the district’s response could impact its state funding. And mayoral candidate Helen Gym blasted the district for “being reactive” instead of prepared.

“‘I’m just disappointed with the district in their handling of our children’s education,” said Johnson, the Building 21 parent.

Billions needed to address failing infrastructure in schools

The danger from asbestos in schools across the country continues to cause concern in the federal government and elsewhere. In recent years, there has been exposed asbestos in schools in cities like Chicago, New Orleans, and Berkeley, Calif.

In an interview, Mayor Jim Kenney said he was “disappointed” that the district had not alerted city officials earlier to the scope of the problem. “I wish we had known about this sooner,” he said.

But he added that the city is ready to help.

“I’m not an expert on asbestos, but we’ll do whatever we can to get these schools back online,” he said, which could include enlisting members of the construction trades to help with asbestos removal and abatement.

The district estimates that $4.5 billion is “required to address building systems that are either failing, damaged or beyond their service life.” Facilities reports say an additional $430 million is also needed to “address health hazards, risks, and life safety deficiencies.”

But regardless of what the district does next, parents like Johnson and Grant say they need to be at the table.

“We are rational people,” Grant said. “We want results and we want to be heard.”

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

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

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Where Philadelphia mayoral candidates stand on education issues: an election guide

2023-04-13T18:05:33+00:00

Update: View the 2023 Philadelphia primary election results

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.

There are 10 candidates running for mayor of Philadelphia — a city with aging, asbestos-laden school buildings, serious budgetary needs, stubbornly low test scores, and a gun violence epidemic that has already cost the lives of 20 students and injured 100 this school year.

The mayor has no direct control over the schools, but does have the power to appoint the nine school board members. The current board members’ terms will expire when Mayor Jim Kenney leaves office, meaning that whoever takes office in January can remake the board from scratch, or can keep some or all of the current members.

While education has not been a major issue in the race, public safety, with a focus on youth and their families, has been high on voters’ minds.

Some differences have emerged among the candidates on key education issues, including charter school expansion, whether the district should get a larger share of city property taxes, and to what degree the mayor will seek to shake up the board and impact school policy.

The degree of mayoral control over the education in the city has fluctuated over the past decades and is now at its highest point.

From the 1950s to the 1990s, the terms of mayoral appointees to the nine-member board were staggered to minimize the power of any one mayor. In 2001, the state took over Philadelphia schools, citing fiscal and academic disarray, and installed a five-member School Reform Commission, with three members appointed by the governor and two by the mayor. In 2018, the commission disbanded and the Philadelphia Board of Education resumed control over city schools.

To better understand each candidate’s views on key issues, Chalkbeat Philadelphia asked them 10 questions about education, including several questions submitted by Chalkbeat readers. Six of the candidates responded.

Here’s what they said, in their own words.

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

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

This article is a part of Every Voice, Every Vote, a collaborative project managed by The Lenfest Institute for Journalism. Lead support is provided by the William Penn Foundation with additional funding from The Lenfest Institute, Peter and Judy Leone, the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation, Harriet and Larry Weiss, and the Wyncote Foundation, among others. To learn more about the project and view a full list of supporters, visit www.everyvoice-everyvote.org. Editorial content is created independently of the project’s donors.

A week before students decide, Philadelphia’s selective high schools have hundreds of vacant seats

2023-04-06T21:30:17+00:00

A week before Philadelphia students are scheduled to decide where to enroll for ninth grade, 12 of the district’s selective schools still have a combined total of more than 700 open seats, many of which are likely to go unfilled.

The open seats, which the district reported in a statement Thursday, follow its implementation of a new lottery admissions system that was meant to bring more equity and opportunity to the process. But the system, which fully went into effect this school year, has also resulted in fewer students enrolling at many criteria-based high schools for the upcoming year. That trend has sparked concerns about forced teacher transfers, declining enrollment, and corresponding job cuts at those schools, as well as worries about some of the schools’ long-term viability.

The impact on faculty has led to several protests by students and teachers, one before the March 23 Board of Education meeting, and another on March 28 outside City Hall. The concerns are especially acute at themed and innovative high schools that serve mostly Black and brown students.

At its most selective high schools, including Masterman and Central, the enrollment historically has mostly consisted of white and Asian students, although there are signs that their demographics are changing significantly under the new system.

At its March meeting, the Board of Education announced the district would offer seats to 316 students who otherwise qualified for next year’s ninth grade in one or more of the schools but had not enrolled. The district subsequently held two information sessions to help fill those seats. But as of Thursday, just 61 of the 316 students had accepted spots.

Last month, Superintendent Tony Watlington acknowledged that the new process is flawed and said the district will try to improve it next year.

Watlington said he was reallocating $3 million from other parts of the district’s budget to minimize the loss of teachers. But he also said last month that principals ultimately make such staffing decisions based on available funding, a point the district has since reiterated.

Watlington said that only three criteria-based high schools would lose more than two teachers next year: Hill-Freedman World Academy, The Arts Academy at Benjamin Rush, and Girls High School, based on their teacher allotments and information from principals.

However, teachers from Science Leadership Academy–Beeber remain uncertain about how many teachers they could lose from their staff of 50.

Normally, Beeber would take 120 ninth graders, but for next year the projected number is about half that, said Alex Kopp, a math and computer science teacher at the school.

The lottery qualifies students based on grades, test scores (in years when they are available), attendance, and behavior. In past years, schools like Beeber were also able to interview students who came close to qualifying and appeared on paper to be a good fit for the project-based curriculum.

This year, however, they could not interview students to flesh out the class, he said. That change was part of the district’s effort to eliminate implicit bias from the admissions system.

If school staffing drops below a certain level, he might be unable to maintain his computer science and technology program.

Kopp said he respects equity as a goal for the new admissions process, especially for the most selective schools like Central and Masterman. But schools like Beeber could be adversely affected, he said, by “becoming less diverse and less able to serve students that would be highly successful” in their small, often project-based approach to learning. If that happens, “the school community suffers,” he said.

Among the 61 students among the 316 who decided to accept an offer to a selective school, the most popular were Arts Academy at Benjamin Rush, Creative and Performing Arts (CAPA) High School, Franklin Learning Center (FLC), and Saul, the state’s only high school that focuses on agriculture.

Beeber was among the other schools students could choose from. Those schools included Lankenau, Motivation, Hill-Freedman, the three Parkways — Northwest, Center City Middle College, and West — and Girls High.

Students, who can apply to up to five schools, must inform the district of their decision by April 14.

Video by WHYY Movers & Makers.

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

Philadelphia school board seeking student applicants for advisory positions

2023-04-04T21:34:52+00:00

Attention ninth and 10th graders in Philadelphia district-run and charter schools: If you would like to be an advisory member of the Philadelphia Board of Education, you can apply between now and April 28.

For next school year, the board is making changes to its requirements for its non-voting student advisory members. Instead of seniors, it wants sophomores and juniors. And in addition to the two members, the school board plans to appoint an alternate.

The Home Rule Charter requires that the nine- member board have at least one student advisory member, but since 2018, it has had two.

The student members provide the board feedback about a variety of issues through regular reports, said Sarah-Ashley Andrews, the board’s liaison to the student advisory members. Each year, the student members have a different focus, from mental health to advocacy for more school funding. This past year, they participated in the superintendent selection process.

This year, the board is also making a special outreach to students at charter schools to apply.

“We are hoping one of the three spots goes to a charter student,” said Shakyra Greene, program manager for the board. “Charters are one third of the district, and it’s important they participate and have their voices heard.”

Of the more than 197,000 students who attend publicly funded schools in the city, some 64,500 are in brick-and-mortar charters, and another 13,000 are in cyber charters. Since 2018, only one student advisory board member has been from a charter school. (The five-member School Reform Commission, which governed the district between 2001 and 2018, never had student advisory members.)

Applicants need to have at least a 2.5 grade point average and “be actively involved in their school community,” according to the application.

The board is seeking sophomores and juniors to serve on the board next year “because we found seniors to be focused on the next stage for their lives,” Andrews said. “We don’t want that to be a deterrence and want them to enjoy their senior year.”

The current student board member is Sophia Roach, who attends the High School of the Creative and Performing Arts and is the editor-in-chief of the citywide student publication, The Bullhorn.

The board decided to add an alternate member because this year’s other student member, Love Speech, left the position for personal reasons. It’s the first time that has happened since 2018.

The addition of an alternate is “to make sure somebody is in place if one member” leaves, Andrews said. The alternate member will go through the same orientation process as the two others, and will be asked to attend all the board meetings, at least remotely.

At the March board meeting, Central High School student Jeron Williams II chastised the board for leaving Speech’s seat open.

“From day one, there was no plan to fill Love’s seat. The board has yet again shortchanged our students,” Williams II said.

Greene said that between 30 and 80 students have applied for the position in each of the past five years, and that the number has dipped post-pandemic. “The first few years, it hovered around the 70-80 mark, and we hope this year to get the numbers back up,” she said.

Student applicants for the positions are vetted through a committee that includes representatives from various youth advocacy groups including the Philadelphia Student Union, the Philadelphia Youth Commission, and UrbEd, as well as the mayor’s Office of Youth Engagement. These and other groups forward five finalists to the superintendent, who then chooses the members and the alternate.

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

More school counselors would improve juvenile justice system for girls, Philadelphia DA says

2023-03-31T19:02:49+00:00

Philadelphia’s juvenile justice system needs an overhaul to more fairly treat girls who are arrested and provide them with effective services and prevention programs, according to a new report from District Attorney Larry Krasner’s office.

Far fewer girls in the city are arrested than boys, the report found, but they are more likely to be arrested for incidents that occur in school or at home — one in three, compared to one in five boys.

“Girls without question are in a unique position in the juvenile justice system,” Krasner said at a Thursday press conference releasing the report. “They are arrested in small numbers, and they are arrested for very different kinds of offenses.”

One of the main recommendations from Krasner’s office involving education is that there should be a ratio of one counselor per 250 students in city schools, down from the current ratio of one per 650. In March, the Philadelphia Board of Education passed a budget that provides additional counselors to the highest-needs schools, although it doesn’t go as far as what the report calls for. Doing so would require hiring 240 more counselors at a cost $17.4 million.

The report — “Overlooked or Overscrutinized: A Case Study of Girls’ Justice in Philadelphia and Implications for the Design of a Fairer System” — studied all juvenile arrests in 2019.

In addition, the report said that every school should have two counselors on staff, regardless of its size, “with at least one of these counselors identifying as a woman to ensure that girls have a safe space if they do not feel comfortable confiding in male-identifying counselors.”

The student-counselor ratio was decimated due to budget cuts a decade ago and has not been fully restored.

The study looked at all 2,242 youth arrests in 2019, and followed all the cases through their disposition as of the end of 2022, said Adam Serlin, one of the report’s authors.

He said that nationally, 69% of the juveniles arrested are boys, but in Philadelphia, 81% are boys. The data also shows a stark racial imbalance: While about half of the city’s population is Black and 23% Hispanic, 95% of the girls arrested are Black or brown.

Black girls in particular “are overpoliced,” said Philadelphia Public Defender Keisha Hudson. “They are perceived as more mature, more aggressive. They’re perceived as adults, in our schools in our justice system, and they’re treated that way. So I think this is an important first step.”

While boys make up the majority of youth in our system, “the number of girls is growing at a rate that should concern us all,” Hudson said.

“The most practical implication of this is … the existence of fewer programs and services for girls in the juvenile justice system,” he said. Most of the existing programs are for boys only.

The “gender skew” also leads to much less research on girls.

Students protest for change in the system

A group of about 50 students, male and female, rallied outside the building across from City Hall where the Krasner press conference was held. They demanded reforms to juvenile justice in the city.

“They are putting girls in jail for fights in school,” said Kendra Vandewater, executive director of the nonprofit YEAH Philly, which stands for Youth Empowerment for Advancement Hangout. It works with young people who have been impacted by violence to offer them services and reduce arrests. The group chanted “free our youth” and “stop judging kids as adults.”

Kassidy Tingle, 20, one of the protesters, said that she was arrested for drug possession at age 17 when she was a student at Camelot Academy, an alternative school for students who leave traditional high schools for disciplinary or attendance reasons. She said she was called racial slurs by the police and not given the help she needed.

“They take advantage of their authority and don’t respect us,” she said. “They don’t see us as humans.”

The data shows that more girls are arrested for assault than any other reason, 44%, said report co-author Ciara Sheerin. That’s nearly double the rate for boys. And a major reason so many girls are arrested is a provision in state law that labels as a felony any assault on a member of a “protected class.”

Under the law, Sheerin said, teachers and other school staff, including school resource officers, are considered a protected class. So a student who pushes a teacher or a school resource officer, even if there is no injury, has to be charged as a criminal assault, she said.

Marsha Levick, head of the Juvenile Law Center, noted that she wrote a law journal article 20 years ago on this topic. “It’s dismaying to note that ... things haven’t changed,” she said.

“It’s not enough to give everyone the same,” she said. “What we’ve learned over time … is that when we think about the involvement and interaction of girls with the justice system, they have very specific needs. And we can’t assume that what works for boys will work for girls.”

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

Philly parents say schools don’t prepare students to thrive, want next mayor to prioritize education

2023-03-29T22:41:55+00:00

A large share of Philadelphia parents say schools are on the wrong track and the next mayor must exert more control over education, says a new report from the nonprofit organization Elevate 215.

The group, which awards grants for school improvement, polled 400 Philadelphia parents and guardians with children in district, charter, and private schools, as well as a handful of home-schoolers. Nine in 10 agreed that “a candidate’s plan for improving the education system in the city is key to earning my support.”

Nearly two-thirds of those polled feel that the city schools are “on the wrong track” — although only 27% feel that way about their own child’s school and just 42% said that Philadelphia high school students are well prepared “to thrive in life.”

The poll comes as the city prepares to elect a new mayor to succeed Jim Kenney, with the party primaries scheduled for May 16. There are 12 Democrats and one Republican running. Because the city has seven times as many Democrats as Republicans, winning the Democratic primary is considered tantamount to winning the election.

In mayoral forums around the city, public safety has emerged as the top concern; the city had 516 homicides in 2022 and already more than 100 this year, including several incidents involving students going to or from school.

Those questioned in the Elevate 215 poll were pessimistic about how well schools prepared students for the next step in their education or career. Just 46% said they thought students were well prepared to enter a four-year college and 44% said they were prepared for a full-time job. Just over half of those surveyed said that students were prepared for a two-year community college or technical school.

The Elevate 215 report emphasized the mayoral role in education, saying the mayor must “set a vision, appoint board members aligned with that vision, and be held accountable for student outcomes.”

Asked to rank their priorities in choosing a school, 91% said safety — both in and on the way to school — was “very important.” Teacher quality and curriculum and instruction followed close behind. Philadelphia parents have a lot of educational options; in addition to the ability to choose charter or private schools, parents can also apply to attend a district-run school outside their neighborhood.

‘We have to go back to listening to our parents and planning for what our students need to thrive in life,” said Stacy Holland, Elevate 215’s executive director, who previously ran the Fund for the School District of Philadelphia, its fundraising arm.

Elevate 215 started out as the Philadelphia School Partnership, which raised money from foundations and philanthropists and promoted charter school growth in the city, although it has distributed grants to schools of all types.

Besides setting a vision for improving schools, the group recommends that the next mayor “increase the number of high quality schools” by improving curriculum and services, developing a plan for modern facilities, improving student safety focusing on teacher recruitment and retention, and advocating for equitable state funding for city schools

A Commonwealth Court judge last month ruled that Pennsylvania’s system for funding education is unconstitutional because it creates wide gaps between wealthy and poor districts and ordered an overhaul.

Unlike every other district in the Commonwealth, the appointed Board of Education cannot raise revenue for the schools, and must rely on the city, state, and federal government for its funding. In Philadelphia, the district must plead its case before City Council every year. The district spends less per student than most surrounding suburban districts despite having students who are primarily Black and brown and come from low-income families.

Currently, about 38% of the district’s revenue comes from city sources, but the survey did not ask whether the respondents would support more local taxes to raise money for the schools. Now, the district gets 55% of the property tax revenue as well as money from the use-and-occupancy and liquor-by-the-drink taxes.

Several of the mayoral candidates said at a forum last week that they would support raising the district’s share of the property tax to 60%.

Holland said she would love to hear the candidates talk about creative ways to “fill the funding gap” for schools.

“Whether that is taxes, or more alignment with the city budget, being creative about filling the gap is something we should look for,” she said.

She said, “We’re educating a population of young people who are living in deep poverty and schools don’t have the resources to meet their needs. If we’re not owning up to that, what are we doing? [Concentrated] poverty changes the game, and we’ve got to rise to that occasion.”

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

Philadelphia schools chief announces changes to high school admissions after enrollment protests

2023-03-23T18:02:08+00:00

More than 100 students and some teachers rallied before the Board of Education meeting Thursday to protest how the lottery system for citywide and selective admission high schools is causing huge enrollment drops for many of next fall’s incoming classes.

The declines mean that schools will lose staff positions and many teachers will be reassigned, since teacher allotments are done in the spring based on anticipated fall enrollment. This will destabilize these schools, demoralizing both staff and current students, teachers said.

The centralized lottery system was imposed in 2021 due to concerns about equity and access for Black and brown students to some of the city’s most coveted schools. The lottery also represented an effort to address any “implicit bias,” officials said at the time. It replaced a longstanding process in which principals made the final admissions decisions from the pool of qualified applicants.

Officials said allowing principals to make those calls resulted in a preponderance of white and Asian students at schools like Central and Masterman, even though 80% of the district’s students are Black and Latino. The lottery system also gives preference to students from six ZIP codes that rarely send students to selective schools.

But this year, teachers say, based on current enrollment projections, the lottery process is having dire consequences for a group of themed and innovative high schools that serve mostly Black and brown students. Many of those schools have relatively small enrollments.

“How is this equity?” asked teacher Jessica Way, who runs a medical assistant program at Franklin Learning Center. At her school, there are slated to be 50 open seats in next year’s freshman class and enrollment is projected to dip from nearly 1,000 students in 2020-21 to fewer than 800 next year.

At Thursday’s protest, one student held up a sign referring to fears about staffing cuts at Saul High School. “Saul has no future with no teachers,” the sign said.

“We only have 55 new freshmen and we would normally have 150,” said Deonna Brown, a Saul sophomore.

In the wake of the protest, Superintendent Tony Watlington issued a statement — and then said at the Board of Education meeting Thursday — that the district will devote $3 million to ensure that no school will lose more than two staff members, “subject to principal discretion.”

Watlington also said the district will offer spots at schools with admission criteria to 316 students who qualify for one or more of the schools with admission criteria, but are currently slated to attend their neighborhood schools. He said at the board meeting that more eighth graders met criteria this year under the lottery system than prior to the pandemic, but added that “there are still kinks to work out.”

Board of Education President Reginald Streater, who with other board members watched the rally, said in an interview that the district plans to audit the lottery process and that it could change next year.

“Right now, we’re in Band Aid mode,” he said.

Before the intervention Watlington announced Thursday, the Franklin Learning Center was due to lose as many as nine staff members, Way said.

Elsewhere, teachers said that only 17 students are slated to enter ninth grade at Bartram Motivation, a small high school that offers research-based learning and dual enrollment with Harrisburg University, leaving it with 90 open ninth grade seats.

Other schools with severely under-enrolled incoming freshman classes include The U School, The LINC, Science Leadership Academy at Beeber, Hill-Freedman, and Saul, the state’s only high school that focuses on animal science and agriculture.

Because Saul was projecting such a small ninth grade class, it was slated to lose six teachers before Watlington’s announcement Thursday, and its agriculture program could be affected, teachers said.

At the same time, there are hundreds of students who are still awaiting school placements because they had no luck with the lottery and have shown interest in one or more of these schools.

For those criteria-based schools, in past years, school personnel would be able to interview students who may have fallen just short of qualifying — for example, they may have had good grades and attendance, but maybe two Cs instead of just one, or a score just below the cutoff on the state standardized test. This year, they cannot do that, Way said.

“Normally there was some wiggle room,” she said. “This year, there was no wiggle room.”

Several Saul students at the rally said they felt that low Pennsylvania System of School Assessment scores were the main reason for the low number of students in the incoming freshman class. Last year, the first time the lottery system was used, those tests were not a factor because they weren’t given due to the pandemic.

‘Kids are more than a number’

In the new, centralized selection process, eighth graders list five high schools and are entered into the lottery of all the schools for which they meet qualifications. Some students get into all five, some to none. The default for any student is their neighborhood high school.

The most highly selective, like Central and Masterman, have stringent grade, test score, behavior, and attendance requirements. The so-called citywide schools have less rigorous criteria regarding grades and test scores, but generally expect good attendance and behavior records.

Once students make their choices, wait lists are created and the process continues until all students are placed.

Some citywide admissions schools, like The U School, have no grade or test score minimums, but must build its class from students who show interest in its model and put it on their list.

Teachers say that the prolonged loss of in-person learning due to COVID is also contributing to the enrollment drop. For some small high schools like The U School, their very viability is threatened.

The U School was established in 2014 to serve students interested in an education that prioritizes personal relationships and real-world learning through internships and partnerships and has no academic cutoffs. The school’s pre-pandemic enrollment had been as high as 400. But based on current projections, the school could have fewer than 200 students when schools open in September and could lose four staff members.

“We rely a lot on school visiting and the [annual] high school fair, but all that stuff was shut down due to COVID,” said Donovan Hayes, a math teacher at The U School. “It’s hard to get kids to write down a school when they’ve never heard of it.”

He said that Principal Neil Geyette wanted to extend invitations to all the students who had put The U School down as one of their choices, about 137 additional students, but was told he could not do that.

Besides the medical assistant program, FLC offers a focus on dance, music, and other arts. Under the old system, principals could determine if students “had a natural interest in the majors at our school. We want kids [who can meet standards] of academic rigor,” Way said. “But kids are more than a number. If you take out the human equation, it takes away the ability to see our kids fully.”

Another repercussion concerns teacher recruitment and retention. The district opened the school year with at least 200 vacancies and is still struggling to hire enough teachers.

Sigal Felber has been working in the district for two years and teaches U.S. History to sophomores at FLC.

“One of the reasons I decided to come [to FLC] is its unique programs,” Felber said. Besides the medical assistant program, it also offers performing arts, visual arts, and business tracks. To Felber, it made sense to interview students to see if they were interested in what the school had to offer.

If FLC loses nine teachers, as was projected before Thursday, two of them will be from the social studies department. And because Felber is so new, “one of them will be me.”

This story has been updated.

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

Philadelphia students press governor on his school safety proposal to hire more police

2023-03-15T22:04:00+00:00

Josh Shapiro, in his first visit to a Philadelphia public school since becoming governor in January, touted his plan to address Pennsylvania’s teacher shortage and said his proposed budget would make a historic investment in education.

In a two-hour visit Wednesday morning to Carver High School of Engineering and Science in North Philadelphia, Shapiro highlighted his plan to use tax credits to encourage more teachers to enter and remain in the profession. He also spent a good deal of his time engaging with students, who weren’t afraid to challenge him on his safety plan to hire more police officers.

Wednesday’s visit is part of Shapiro’s statewide tour to sell his big-picture policy and budget priorities, but the students wanted to talk about safety. In Philadelphia, 78 school district students have been shot this academic year, 17 of them fatally. Carver is in North Philadelphia, one of the neighborhoods most impacted by gun violence.

Shapiro, a Democrat, visited teacher Ian Doreian’s classroom, where 12th graders were mentoring ninth graders through the Peer Group Connection program. He told the students he thinks one solution for gun violence is to increase law enforcement’s presence in their neighborhoods and schools — a strategy used recently by Superintendent Tony Watlington.

But Black students in the room were skeptical about that idea.

“I feel like the issue isn’t to hire more police officers,” said Maniyah Jackson, a ninth grader. “A lot of these police officers, they go through training, but when they step on the street, they forget all their training and base their authority on their emotions instead of sticking to what they’re supposed to do for our community.”

“I feel more safe with a firefighter than I do with police officers,” 12th grader Taniya Son also told Shapiro. “There’s been incidents where it’s like, they’ve been so aggressive towards us for no reason.”

Shapiro said, “I’m sensitive to that … I look the way I do and I don’t necessarily feel that way.”

He thanked the students for their forthrightness and honesty. “That’s a hard thing to speak up and say to the governor,” he said.

He even suggested legislation mandating more comprehensive training of police officers and beefing up after-school programs in community spaces, including firehouses. “I’ll call it Taniya’s Law,” he said.

Shortly after his meeting with the students, a press release from Shapiro’s office noted the governor is heading to Lackawanna College Police Academy in Scranton on Thursday to discuss his proposal to recruit more police officers in the state.

Shapiro was joined at the school by Board of Education President Reginald Streater, Vice President Mallory Fix-Lopez, Watlington, and other district officials. City Council President Darrell Clarke, state Rep. Donna Bullock, and state Sens. Sharif Street and Vincent Hughes also attended. Mayor Jim Kenney made an appearance but didn’t make public remarks.

Shapiro’s proposed budget includes a refundable tax credit of up to $2,500 annually for up to three years for newly certified Pennsylvania teachers, including those just graduating with their certifications and those who relocate from other states.

In total, Shapiro said his budget includes $24.7 million in “job retention and recruitment efforts” for teachers, nurses, and law enforcement personnel.

Pennsylvania is suffering from a major teacher shortage. A decade ago, 20,000 people annually earned their teaching certifications. That number dropped to 6,000 in 2022. Philadelphia opened the school year with more than 200 teacher vacancies, and last month the school board approved more than 100 teacher resignations and retirements, most of them since September.

Shapiro’s proposed budget adds more than $1 billion to education programs. It increases the state’s basic education subsidy by $567 million, but also sets aside additional money for specific needs, including mental health counselors and infrastructure improvement.

Shapiro said his proposal would be a “down payment on the future of education.”

“When I spoke in my budget address, I made clear that this will not happen overnight,” Shapiro said, adding later that “we would have to work on this over two budget cycles.”

When he unveiled his budget earlier this month, Shapiro tied it directly to a historic ruling last month in a landmark school funding case from Commonwealth Court Judge Renée Cohn Jubelirer. In that ruling, Jubelirer said the Commonwealth’s system for funding education is unconstitutional because it is neither adequate in total or equitably distributed. Jubelirer ordered state officials to revamp the system.

Shapiro said that “by all indications there are no plans” from Republican legislative leaders to appeal Jubelirer’s ruling. A spokesman for House Republican leadership said Wednesday that while GOP lawmakers are not focused on appealing the ruling at the moment, “post-trial motions have been briefed and filed. No final decision can be made on an appeal until we see the results of those motions.”

Other officials, including Hughes, have called for an even larger investment in education than Shapiro. With the governor standing next to him, Hughes called Shapiro’s proposal “a great start.”

When speaking to students in Doreian’s classroom, Shapiro recounted his own journey to them. Originally, he wanted to be a doctor, like his father, but he flunked a test in his pre-med program — on the same day he was cut from the basketball team. He became a lawyer and politician instead because that was also an avenue to “help people,” he told them.

“Don’t be afraid to strike out, like I did,” he said.

Jacky Wang, a 12th grader, asked Shapiro a question on many people’s minds: whether he has aspirations for higher office.

Shapiro smiled and said, “This is all I’m focused on.”

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

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

Philadelphia schools pushed to reopen Sayre pool to provide children a safe community space

2023-03-10T21:06:58+00:00

The stalled reopening of a West Philadelphia pool is at the center of a contentious debate over pool access for Black and brown children as summer approaches.

Tensions ran high at the Philadelphia school board’s Feb. 23 meeting when community and school board members clashed over a bogged-down plan to reopen the pool at the Sayre Morris Recreation Center.

Neighborhood residents argue that the pool, which closed in 2017 for repairs, needs to reopen as soon as possible. Knowing how to swim gives young people a sense of confidence that goes beyond the pool, they say. And in addition to providing teens with summer job opportunities, the pool offers children a place to safely congregate and be part of a strong community institution. Such concerns are top of mind for many in Philadelphia at a time when gun violence is plaguing the city and having an especially traumatic impact on the city’s youth.

Board members — who a year ago voted down a plan that would have authorized $10 million to repair the pool — said there are still bureaucratic and financial obstacles to deal with before the facility can reopen.

“It’s just a back-and-forth mess,” said Kristen Britt, president of the Sayre Rec Advisory Council, which works with the city to support the recreation center where the pool is located.

Among other things, kids who swim also have better mental health and do better in school, Britt noted. Reopening the pool would help address issues — such as mental health and attendance — that are priorities for the district, she said in an interview. Sayre’s closure has also affected summer jobs for neighborhood teens, she said, as its Olympic-size pool has historically been used to train lifeguards.

Meanwhile, Sayre and two other district-owned pools in majority-Black Philadelphia neighborhoods remain closed.

While the district owns the pools, the Philadelphia Department of Parks and Recreation manages them. The city and the school board are working on a memorandum of understanding to spell out their joint and separate responsibilities regarding the Sayre pool.

City Councilmember Jamie Gauthier told Chalkbeat she’s worked with Mayor Jim Kenney and state Rep. Joanna McClinton to raise about half the funding needed — estimated to be between $8 million and $12 million — to repair and reopen Sayre.

School board member Mallory Fix Lopez said in an email to Chalkbeat that the board is committed to enrichment activities, including athletics and extracurricular programs. But she added that “for every spend we make, there is another need that goes unmet.”

At the Feb. 23 meeting, she said that the situation with the pool is in a “holding pattern.”

Sayre, which opened in 1966, is one of the city’s few indoor pools and the only one easily accessible from North and West Philadelphia, where many children of color live. The district-owned Lincoln Pool, in Northeast Philadelphia — a primarily white neighborhood — is open, but it’s on the opposite side of the city from Sayre.

Philadelphia, like the rest of the country, has a long history of racial discrimination when it comes to water access. (“Pool: A Social History of Segregation,” an exhibition focusing on “the nation’s handling of race as it relates to public schools,” opens at the Philadelphia Water Works on March 22.)

“We want to make sure that in each end of the city there is the opportunity for Black and

brown children to learn how to swim, and provide a safe space,” Britt said. Without that, she said, they can’t get summer lifeguarding work and other jobs that might ultimately help them get into college.

Martha Ankely, a veteran lifeguard and swimming instructor in Philadelphia, said that ensuring access to pools for children helps them get over their fear of water, which can be “debilitating in a lot of ways.” What’s more, she said, “knowing that you’re able to manage in a different environment can help you cope with managing the everyday environment.”

City pools, which provide free swimming lessons, are important for more than just

recreation, Parks and Recreation spokesman Andrew Alter said in an email to Chalkbeat. “Knowing how to swim is a safety precaution that can save your life,” he said.

What’s more, the Sayre pool is “a historic community asset,” Gauthier noted. “It was a place where children from the Cobbs Creek community and their families would go to

swim, or learn how to swim, and that’s been taken away,” she said.

Fix Lopez said that when the school board voted down a renovation plan for Sayre last year, the district asked for a memorandum of understanding from the city to include plans for operations as well as long-term funding. For now, the board is in a “holding pattern,” she said at the meeting.

Gauthier said she’s “hopeful” an agreement can be reached this spring to reopen Sayre.

Superintendent Tony Watlington wants to implement a plan to look at all school facilities, including pools, Fix Lopez noted in her email to Chalkbeat. (Watlington paused that facilities plan late last year to align it with the district’s upcoming five-year strategic plan.) She also said that Sayre’s situation is a prime opportunity for the public to learn about “how interwoven and complicated these systems are to work through.”

“I think it’s fair to say we all value the benefits that Sayre could bring to the community,”

Fix Lopez said in the email. “We have heard how much this pool means to the community.”

Asbestos closes Philadelphia high school, forcing students to another facility and sparking anger

2023-03-07T15:41:06+00:00

The temporary relocation of Philadelphia students and staff from a high school got off to a shaky start Monday, following the district’s announcement last week that the school would close after inspectors found potential signs of flaking asbestos during a routine check.

Just 10% of students from Building 21 (36 out of 366) attended in-person classes on Monday at Strawberry Mansion High School, as parents and students continued to say that they considered it unsafe to go into the North Philadelphia neighborhood where Mansion — as the school is known — is located. Another 126 accessed virtual classes, said district spokesperson Monique Braxton.

The inspection of Building 21, a small innovative high school founded in 2015, revealed the flaking in the auditorium and stairwells during a routine inspection on Tuesday. Classes were held virtually Thursday and Friday, and parents didn’t learn about the plans for this week until receiving a letter from the district on Friday.

The sudden closure of Building 21, which is located in a 109-year-old building that used to house Kinsey Elementary School, underscores ongoing concerns about the age and safety of many Philadelphia school facilities. The average age of Philadelphia school buildings is roughly 75 years, and health hazards ranging from lead in drinking water to asbestos have been serious problems in the district for years. Such conditions have sparked protests from students and parents in recent years.

Building 21 students and families criticized the abrupt relocation, voicing fears about the safety of Mansion’s surrounding neighborhood. This led to pushback from Mansion students who said that such comments about their school were unjustified.

A Facilities Conditions Assessment filed in 2022 for Building 21’s facility noted that there was asbestos in the auditorium and other areas of the building. Asbestos is not considered dangerous unless it begins to flake. Braxton didn’t know whether work had been done in the building or had been scheduled, but added the district takes action “as soon as asbestos becomes dangerous.”

While Braxton said the remediation work at Building 21 could take “a few weeks” to complete, she also said that Tuesday would be the last day for the specially-provided SEPTA buses. After that, students would have to use TransPasses available from the district, or get to school another way.

Of the 36 students, 22 arrived in the early morning at Building 21 and rode to Mansion on district-provided SEPTA buses. The others got there by other means. Because of the small numbers, no traditional classes were held. Instead, students completed assignments they could access through Google Classroom.

Four of SEPTA’s long “articulated buses” lined the street in front of Building 21 Monday morning, but only one was needed, and it was less than half full.

Braxton said that Mansion was chosen for the relocation because it was relatively close and has been retrofitted as a “swing” school for just such circumstances as this. But at a meeting at Mansion on Sunday, about 200 parents showed up to express their displeasure with the change.

One parent said their children would be “targets” in the neighborhood, citing its history of violence. “How dare they try to send our kids there?” said another parent, Sheila Johnson, according to the Philadelphia Inquirer.

Frustration continued into the school week. As she boarded the bus Monday, Ta’Neseia Edwards, an 11th grader at Building 21, said she thought remote learning would have been a better solution for students at the school.

“They shouldn’t have picked Strawberry Mansion. I understand it’s not a good environment,” Edwards said.

One boy getting on the bus Monday was more blunt. “They are putting our lives in danger,” he muttered.

Wanda Sekle, the parent of a Building 21 10th grader, said she was concerned about the situation. “I don’t feel good, I may transfer my son to another school. I don’t feel good at all,” she said.

Just one of the buses went to Mansion Monday afternoon to pick the students up. At dismissal time, several Strawberry Mansion students commandeered TV microphones to say that their school was being unfairly maligned.

“It’s rude to talk about us that way, the school is way better than it was years ago,” said senior Marissa Cooper. “It’s disrespectful to say what they said.”

Building 21 students will have their own entrance, classrooms, and cafeteria while at Mansion and “don’t interact at all” with the students who normally attend Mansion, Braxton said.

The district had planned to phase out Strawberry Mansion, which now only enrolls 200 students, in 2008, and repurpose the block-long complex where it’s housed for various alternative education programs. But those plans were shelved after opposition from City Council President Darrell Clarke, a Mansion alumnus, and others. The City Council is a major source of the revenue for the district, and the Board of Education has no power to raise its own funds.

Some tried to turn the situation into a more positive moment. When Building 21 students arrived at Mansion Monday morning, a phalanx of community activists known as Men from Mansion formed a line to welcome them as they walked into the building.

Pennsylvania Department of Education regulations allow only five days of the required 180 days of instruction to be virtual, and those five days are “to be used … if a circumstance arises that prevents instruction in the customary manner.” Braxton said that Building 21 has used them all up, including the two from last week.

The district is seeking an exemption for Building 21 from the state. It had not heard back as of close of business Monday.

From now on, Braxton said, Building 21 students who do not come to school will need to provide a written note with a reason in order for it to be an excused absence.

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 hopefuls must prioritize children’s needs and educator pay, coalition says

2023-02-28T23:30:24+00:00

A coalition of 61 groups is trying to focus Philadelphia’s mayoral campaign on issues that impact youth, children, and education.

The coalition, called the Kids Campaign, is prodding the candidates to explain in detail how they would achieve a series of objectives. These include attracting teachers to the city by increasing starting salaries, making summer jobs available for all teens, and providing more affordable, high-quality early childhood education seats.

At its launch event Tuesday, the group released the first six of what will be a dozen policy papers that represent the Kids Campaign’s platform. They have titles like “No child in Philadelphia should go hungry or live in poverty,” and “Philadelphia must contribute to solving the climate crisis to ensure a thriving future for our kids.”

For example: To attract more teachers, the group in its policy papers says the district should increase starting salaries, reduce class sizes, and build affordable housing for teachers, among other actions.

The group has sent its platform — the product of extensive research and filled with facts and policy proposals — to the 10 Democrats and one Republican running for mayor. Eight have responded that they are in agreement with the goals, said Donna Cooper, executive director of Children First, a major organizer of the campaign.

But that initial agreement is just a start. Cooper said the organization will be briefing the candidates on their findings, and is expecting responses by March 20 to a detailed questionnaire asking them to describe their strategies to address problems.

“It’s one thing to support the platform and another to say how you will achieve it,” said Cooper. “And that’s really going to be the test for us, whether candidates are serious about supporting the needs of kids.”

The primary is May 16, and winning the Democratic primary is considered tantamount to winning the general election. Democrats have an eight-to-one registration advantage in the city. There’s no clear front-runner in the crowded field to replace Mayor Jim Kenney, whose term expires at the end of this year.

On early childhood education, the group found that 43% of children in the city don’t have access to any publicly funded pre-K, and only 36% are currently in programs considered high quality.

Among the coalition’s policy proposals to deal with that is to set a minimum wage of $17.53 an hour for people working in PHLPreK, one of four Philadelphai subsidized early childhood programs and the only one fully funded by the city. (The program is funded by a tax on sugary beverages that some candidates oppose.)

The group also wants changes to the juvenile justice system to make it more “restorative” and less punitive. As part of that, it wants the next mayor to “direct school board members” to reform how it deals with truancy, especially by addressing “the reasons youth are failing to attend school.” The mayor appoints all nine board members.

According to the coalition’s research, 64% of youth who are in detention are there for non-felony offenses and 71% for a first offense.

“Placing them in institutions doesn’t deter them, it derails them,” said Sharon Ward of the Education Law Center, a member of the coalition. “They disengage from education, quickly fall behind, and are more likely to drop out.”

Plus, she said, there are widespread racial disparities in how the system treats juveniles who have gotten into trouble. Black students are much more likely to be removed from their homes, and Philadelphia, with about 12% of Pennsylvania’s population, accounts for 41% of the juvenile placements in the state.

Among the Kids Campaign’s recommendations is to direct the Department of Human Services to create alternatives to incarceration that are “rehabilitative and restorative.” The coalition also wants “reduce the presence” of school safety officers “so that youth are not likely to be adjudicated for school infractions.”

In December, Philadelphia Superintendent Tony Watlington announced that the district would pay for an increased presence of city police officers near some school buildings. The move was part of his response to ongoing and acute concerns about student safety, amid a gun-violence crisis afflicting the city’s young people.

Cooper, who served as Ed Rendell’s policy chief when he was Philadelphia’s mayor and Pennsylvania’s governor, added that “every day, more parents are signing up to join” the Kids Campaign, and that she expects the coalition to make a difference.

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

To meet new state graduation rules, a Philadelphia school holds students and staff accountable

2023-02-15T12:30:00+00:00

In August, when Philadelphia district officials briefed their high school teachers and administrators on the state’s new graduation requirements, Sayre High School Assistant Principal Nina Brevard could only react with worry and disbelief.

“We were all scared,” she said. “We thought, ‘You want us to do what, by when?’”

Until this school year, in order to graduate from Philadelphia public schools, students needed to complete a senior project and earn 23.5 credits distributed across four subjects: English Language Arts, math, science, and social studies. But starting with the Class of 2023, they also have to meet at least one of five graduation pathways under a law enacted in 2018 called Act 158.

In theory, the most straightforward one is to score proficient or advanced on three Keystone exams in English literature, biology, and algebra. Alternatively, they can score proficient or advanced on one Keystone and not score below basic on either of the other two while having a composite score that reaches a minimum threshold.

Not many students would make it either way at Sayre, a small high school in West Philadelphia with an enrollment of fewer than 400 students, including 90 seniors, most of whom come from challenging socioeconomic circumstances.

In 2018-19, the last full school year before COVID disrupted state exams, just 11% of Sayre students scored proficient or advanced on the English Keystone, just 2% did so in biology, and not one student scored that high in math. The school’s four-year graduation rate was just 61% in 2021-22, compared to 75% district-wide the same year, while just 26% of Sayre’s students go on to college, according to recent data.

So at first, the law seemed to impose a new mandate on students and teachers already struggling with difficult circumstances. But what started out as a daunting, government-mandated task — what some feared would create another barrier for struggling students and more work for already overwhelmed educators — has led to a largely positive response from students and staff who are working hard and in new ways to achieve it.

For one thing, it has focused students on considering their futures. Principal Jamie Eberle said that before this year, many students had no idea about their post-graduation plans.

The pathways, which include opportunities for internships and industry certifications, encourage them to think long-term beyond just taking required courses that may not interest them.

The school also has had a proactive strategy. Teachers became directly responsible for monitoring students’ progress and helping them stay on track. School administrators began the year by laying out clear information to parents as well as students. And Sayre staff, in turn, encouraged students to come to them with concerns and hold them accountable.

“The easiest way to attack it is to make sure all students are touched by a caring adult,” said Eberle.

Although there’s still lingering skepticism and uncertainty about the new graduation rule, students have largely embraced the pathways requirement as worthwhile.

When junior Sheanee Bentley, 16, first heard about the new mandate, “I thought they were doing too much. But the more it was explained, I thought it was good.”

She said it “helped students think about how to navigate after you get out of high school.”

She intends to take the armed forces qualifying test to satisfy Act 158.

Looking beyond standardized tests for a diploma

In 2018, amid concerns about the value of a high school diploma, the Pennsylvania General Assembly discussed legislation that would require students to pass the three Keystone exams in order to graduate.

But teachers unions and others raised concerns about overreliance on standardized tests as such a crucial gatekeeper, especially given wide disparities in district resources and data showing that students of color and those from low-income backgrounds were less likely to do well on them.

The bill that became Act 158, enacted that year, grew out of this concern. It outlined the additional pathways, which were originally slated to become effective for the Class of 2021; the state pushed back that date by two years due to COVID.

The three pathways that don’t hinge on Keystone exams rely on various factors, including other tests.

First, students can use the pathway of achieving minimum scores on the PSAT, SAT, or ACT, which are college entrance tests, or the ASVAB Armed Forces Qualifying Test. As part of this pathway, they can also score well on AP and International Baccalaureate exams in the Keystone subjects in which they were not proficient, successfully complete courses in those subjects, complete an apprenticeship program, or be accepted into a four-year college.

Second, career and technical education students can satisfy one of the pathways by getting an industry certification. They can do this by passing the industry-standard test, called the NOCTI, in their specialty. Students not already on the career-technical education track in school can satisfy this pathway by earning an industry certification on their own. Examples of such certifications are those needed to work with children, such as being a mandated reporter and learning CPR.

Third, students can attain three goals from a list of 12 items. These include minimum scores on the SAT, Advanced Placement, and International Baccalaureate exams; successful completion of a college-level course; a letter guaranteeing employment; military enlistment; or acceptance to a postsecondary institution that is not a four-year college.

The challenge Sayre faces with respect to the Keystone pathways isn’t unusual. School district officials told the City Council at a hearing last month that, in the district as a whole, just 26% of students score proficient or advanced on all three Keystones.

District spokesperson Christina Clark said Tuesday that of the district’s 8,120 seniors, roughly 3,815 (about 47%) had achieved an Act 158 pathway and were also on track for the credit requirements. Roughly 4,220 seniors, or 52%, had achieved a pathway, according to the district.

“This is doable. We have to make sure students have what they need,” Deputy Superintendent Shavon Savage told the council.

At Sayre, a few seniors did get sufficient Keystone scores to put them on track to graduate, Brevard said, and a few are retaking the tests. But many never took the test at all, either because of the pandemic or because they hadn’t previously been enrolled in school in Pennsylvania before coming to Sayre.

Sayre has a highly transient population, with students from disparate backgrounds coming and going throughout the year.

Recently, the school got new students from as nearby as Lancaster, Pa., and as far away as Bangladesh, Canada, and Jamaica, Eberle said.

In addition, about 85% of the students come from low-income families, and four out of 10 students receive some form of special education services.

Students and staff proud of achievements

At the beginning of the school year during orientation, Eberle and Brevard held a town hall-style meeting with the seniors and their parents to make sure they understood what the graduation requirements were and what it would mean for them.

As the school leaders explained what was happening, many parents and students “were looking lost,” Brevard said. But that gradually changed. Once the school year was underway, seven teachers and Brevard each each took on a caseload of seniors, approximately 10 each, to guide through the process.

Just as important, Eberle and Brevard wanted students to take ownership of the process. So they told students that they should expect the person monitoring their Act 158 progress to contact them and stay in touch.

“You have the power now, come tell me if they haven’t seen you,” Eberle said. “We were giving students the power to hold adults accountable.”

Despite her early skepticism, Brevard has reached the conclusion that the requirement benefits students. After all, not every student’s strength is passing tests like the Keystones.

“I tell them that these are things you can put on your resumes,” Brevard said. “When they apply for jobs, especially those who are not college bound, they already have some certifications like CPR.”

And then there are less quantifiable benefits, like the pride Brevard said that students feel when they meet the requirements of a pathway, and how they go from feeling “frazzled” to having a new skill set.

Nia Devard, 17, a junior at Sayre, said she finds it “kind of amazing” that she satisfied two of the pathways by achieving an acceptable score on the PSAT and on the test necessary to enter the military, the ASVAB.

Many other students have similar sentiments, although not all their concerns about post-graduation plans have gone away.

Noah Williams, 18, a senior on the basketball team, satisfied one pathway by scoring well enough on the test to qualify for the military. He plans to enter the Marines “because that’s the hardest” of the military service branches, he said.

He is proud of his achievement. Still, he worries about his peers. While acceptance to college helps satisfy one pathway, higher education isn’t a practical option for some.

“What if they can’t afford college?” he said.

Then there are the students who had to adjust to more than a new state law. Cinthia Rosario, 17, came from West New York, N.J., to Sayre for the 12th grade last summer.

Meeting the pathway was just one more big thing she had to worry about at Sayre. “It was hard,” said Rosario, who is originally from the Dominican Republic. “I had to get used to a new school, new people, new state.”

But she is fitting in. She is a cheerleader, and she has already met a pathway: she has been accepted into Indiana University of Pennsylvania, and she wants to study psychology.

Social studies teacher Joseph Fafara is one of the teachers with a caseload of students. At first, he thought the whole process would be unwieldy.

But with “teamwork and effort,” he said, the task has been manageable for staff and students. He’s been pleasantly surprised so far.

“Preparing students for the next step in life is what our job is,” Farfara said.

Sayre teacher Kate Conroy talks to students in her journalism class. Conroy has mixed feelings about Pennsylvania’s new graduation requirements.

Kate Conroy, another of the teacher-mentors, is hopeful about the requirements but harbors some doubts. She is concerned that due to the pathways the school district dropped the requirement for a research-intensive senior project, although the pathways offer the option for one.

“Will more students go to college, and will more students stay in college?” she said. “I guess you could say I am slightly skeptical that this will achieve what the state hopes it will achieve, but I would love to be proven wrong.”

In addition to making sure this year’s seniors are on track to meet a pathway, Sayre is also working on preparing younger students for what’s ahead.

Echoing Brevard’s comments, sophomore Sage Turner, 16, said the requirement “helps people focus.”

“I feel like, okay, they are difficult,” she said of the pathway requirements. “But that’s in order to see what people are really made of.”

She is a career and technical education student who is planning to go into nursing, and hopes that she can meet the pathways by getting a health-related certification.

“That is my passion,” 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.

Philly schools will delay classes 2 hours on Monday after Super Bowl

2023-02-08T19:14:15+00:00

Philadelphia public schools will have a delayed start Monday whether or not the Eagles claim Super Bowl victory.

All school buildings will open with a two-hour delay “to ensure the safety of students and staff traveling to school,” School District of Philadelphia officials said in a message to families and staff Wednesday.

“While we look forward to a great game and an Eagles victory, we look forward to welcoming students back to classrooms the next day,” the message said. “Go Birds.”

Improving student and teacher attendance is one of Superintendent Tony Watlington’s immediate goals as he works to make Philadelphia “the fastest-improving large, urban school district in the country.”

Part of the district’s approach focuses on making sure families know the importance of regular attendance. The hope is, if a family is running behind, they’ll at least bring their child to school late, rather than have them miss the entire day.

Consistent attendance is one of the greatest indicators of student success, along with access to a high-quality teacher.

The district’s average daily attendance rate for students was 87% in December and 89% for teachers, which is the most recent data available.

Its regular attendance rate — the percentage of students attending 90% of school days a month — was lower. Fifty-eight percent of students had regular attendance in December compared to 69% of teachers.

Several other Philadelphia-area schools have also opted for two-hour delays, including Upper Merion and Radnor school districts.

Shapiro selects 2nd Philly school official to join cabinet

2023-02-02T19:31:57+00:00

Gov. Josh Shapiro has selected another Philadelphia school district official to join his cabinet.

Reggie McNeil, the district’s chief operating officer, will serve as secretary of general services, responsible for state buildings and vehicles, as well as procurement, Shapiro announced Wednesday.

Shapiro tapped the district’s chief financial officer Uri Monson to serve as his budget secretary in December. Monson stabilized the district’s finances during his nearly seven-year tenure, resulting in a significant upgrade to its credit rating.

McNeil hasn’t been with the district for as long, but still made a sizeable impact, Superintendent Tony Watlington said in a written statement.

“Reggie has been an asset to the district and will be greatly missed,” Watlington said.

Highlights of McNeil’s two-and-a-half years with the district include developing a district-wide facility improvement plan and reducing a backlog of maintenance orders by 20% in less than one year, according to the Governor’s Press Office.

“As an advocate for reform and transparency in government, I am excited to work alongside Governor Shapiro to solve problems and make sure government operates efficiently and effectively for the people of Pennsylvania,” McNeil said in a written statement.

McNeil spent 22 years in the Navy’s Civil Engineer Corps before switching to education in 2016. He served as executive director of capital programs for schools in Charleston, South Carolina before he came to Philadelphia in 2020.

The district is currently conducting a nationwide search to hire Monson’s successor and will start another one soon to replace McNeil, according to district spokesperson Monique Braxton.

These are the 9 candidates for Philadelphia mayor and their track records in education

2023-02-01T12:00:00+00:00

Nine candidates are running in the May 16 primary to replace Mayor Jim Kenney — and whoever is elected will have a strong influence over Philadelphia schools.

The mayor has the authority to appoint all nine members of the school board to four-year terms, so could theoretically remake the board from scratch. Along with the City Council, the mayor determines the city’s contribution to the school district’s budget and whether tax hikes are needed to increase that amount.

The issues facing the district right now are daunting. Test scores took a hit during the pandemic. Gun violence and lingering mental health concerns impact student learning. Teacher shortages have grown acute. Questions about how to handle charter schools, especially whether to close those that are underperforming or that engage in practices that raise conflict-of-interest questions, remain a point of contention.

All nine of the candidates are Democrats. In Philadelphia, where 80% of registered voters are Democrats, winning the primary is tantamount to election.

Here’s more about each candidate and what we know about their education records. Please fill out the callout below to let us know what you’d like us to ask each candidate for our upcoming voter guide before the primary.

Warren Bloom

Rev. Warren Bloom Sr.

Rev. Warren Bloom Sr.’s campaign website lists his experience as committeeman, minister, family business owner, musician, and activist. He’s run for office before, including in 2019 for mayor and city commissioner.

Bloom’s website lists “strong public schools” and “excellence for teaching and learning” as two of the issues he is “passionate about and will fight for.” His campaign also has a GoFundMe page that says he has a six-point plan for the city that includes “improving education.”

In 1992, Bloom was convicted of indecent assault, simple assault, and corrupting a minor, according to the news website Billy Penn, citing court records. (He said later that he pleaded no contest to the charges because he didn’t want to put the minor through any more emotional stress.)

Amen Brown

State Rep. Amen Brown operated day care centers and after-school programs in Philadelphia, where he was born and raised, before being elected to the House in November 2020.

He is a product of the Philadelphia public school system, and attended Community College of Philadelphia after graduating from Overbrook High School.

Brown, whose district includes parts of West Philadelphia, lists funding for education as a legislative priority. He sits on the Aging & Older Adult Services and Urban Affairs committees, as well as the Pennsylvania legislative Black Caucus.

He was the only House Democrat to vote for a bill that would have created an education choice program for students at some low-performing public schools, though he ultimately switched his vote, according to the Philadelphia Inquirer. Brown has also reportedly received campaign contributions from groups linked to Jeffrey Yass, a billionaire and supporter of charter schools.

According to the Inquirer, Brown’s businesses have faced accusations of financial and legal improprieties over the past decade, including thousands of dollars in unpaid taxes racked up by his day care centers.

Jeff Brown

Grocery-store operator Jeff Brown is new to politics. A fourth-generation grocer, he owns and operates 11 ShopRite stores in historically underserved Philadelphia neighborhoods. Brown said he opened the stores in these “food deserts” as a way of addressing poverty.

Brown told the Inquirer he wants to shake up “the City Hall establishment,” which he said was “nonresponsive” to the city’s problems.

On his campaign website, Brown says the “lack of equity” in city public schools is a critical issue for Philadelphia.

“Parents should not have to leave the city to find quality public education for their children,” Brown says on his website. “And they shouldn’t have to fight for the few slots in magnet schools.”

Brown is also appealing to unions by touting his experience negotiating with ShopRite unions and pledging to address staffing issues in the city’s workforce, including police. He has been endorsed by the city’s largest union, AFSCME District Council 33, as well as the union representing transit workers. A United Food and Commercial Workers local official endorsed him at his campaign launch.

James DeLeon

James DeLeon was a Philadelphia Municipal Court judge for 34 years. His volunteer experience includes working with kids as a swimming teacher, track and field official, debate coach, and Police Athletic League board member.

DeLeon hasn’t put forward an education platform, though his plan to address gun violence includes establishing a system to coordinate city resources and address the “root causes” of the problem, including gathering input from the school district.

Allan Domb

Real estate developer and former City Council member Allan Domb has cited the need for financial literacy classes and investment in schools.

Domb owns more than 400 properties in Philadelphia worth more than $400 million, according to the Inquirer. As a council member, he focused on fiscal issues including business tax cuts and tax refunds for low-income workers, and campaigned on a promise to fund city schools by collecting taxes from out-of-state property owners, according to Billy Penn.

Domb’s campaign website includes a “10-point action plan on public safety” listing actions he’d take in his first 100 days in office. Those range from declaring a “crime emergency” and tripling funding for police officer recruitment, to installing cameras in every high school and working with school leaders.

Domb resigned his City Council seat to run for mayor, and has said that if elected he would avoid conflicts of interest with his real estate investments.

Derek Green

A Mount Airy resident, Green is a former prosecutor and served in the city attorney’s office (as well as an assistant deputy attorney general for the state of Delaware). He was elected to be an at-large member of Philadelphia City Council in 2015. Earlier in his career, he had worked as a council staffer for Marian Tasco, who represented the 9th District.

On education, he said he draws on his personal and legislative experience. Green’s mother taught for 31 years in the school district and he often describes himself as “a teacher’s kid.”

Green has a son on the autism spectrum. Green said their neighborhood public school developed a robust special education program partly due to advocacy by him and his wife. The school now has several autism support classes.

Both his mother and his son were affected by asbestos exposure, he said, and he sponsored legislation that updated the city code on asbestos inspections and remediation in school buildings. In an interview with Chalkbeat, he said that he is still concerned about the district’s efforts in that area. He said he would appoint Board of Education members who have personal experience with the district and will “listen to parents, guardians, and caregivers” about their day-to-day concerns — from building safety to curriculum development to whether school buses run on time.

He said the major issue in the mayoral race, public safety, is tied to education, citing shootings and other incidents involving students in or near school buildings. About these and other issues, growing homelessness among young people, he said, “we could be using schools more effectively to address” them. He suggested the city and district should work more closely on bringing behavioral health services to students and on other programs directed to youth.

Helen Gym

Gym launched her public career as an activist and organizer, and has been a prominent watchdog of the school district and its leadership for nearly three decades.

Gym once worked as a teacher at the Lowell Elementary School in Olney. A mother of three, she helped found the Public School Notebook in 1994, which reported on the district from a community perspective (and which in 2020 became the Philadelphia bureau of Chalkbeat).

Her public profile grew with her resistance to the state takeover of the district in 2002. Gym cofounded Parents United for Public Education in 2006, and became a fixture in city politics by challenging School Reform Commission members at their meetings. She lambasted the commission and district administration for eliminating nurses and counselors during a budget crunch, and for canceling the teachers contract. And she went to Harrisburg to protest for more education funding.

The Philadelphia Federation of Teachers has endorsed her in the race. So has the left-leaning Working Families Party, which helped propel her and fellow progressive Kendra Brooks to their council seats.

She was a leading backer of returning the district to local control. She’s also been outspoken about the district’s asbestos abatement efforts and response to other environmental hazards in schools. As a council member, she successfully pushed legislation requiring the district to eliminate water fountains and install lead-filtering hydration stations in all schools by 2025.

Gym is an opponent of how charter schools are funded under state law, and opposes the ability of charters that are run by for-profit entities to operate in Pennsylvania. She is a co-founder of Folk Arts Cultural Treasures Charter School (FACTS) in Chinatown, run by the non-profit Asian Americans United.

Gym won an at-large seat on the City Council in 2015 and was re-elected in 2019. She has been a vocal opponent of various development proposals in or near Chinatown.

Cherelle Parker

Cherelle Parker was born to a teenage single mother and was largely raised by her grandparents in the Mount Airy section of Philadelphia. She attended Philadelphia public schools, and came to the attention of 9th District city council member Marian Tasco when she won a high school oratory contest. She interned in Tasco’s office.

In 2015, she was elected to succeed Tasco in the 9th District in the northwest part of the city. Before that, she spent 10 years in the General Assembly, in 2005 becoming the youngest African American woman elected to that body.

Parker’s first job out of college was as a high school English teacher, and she has also taught English as a second language to adults. In her campaign materials, she talks about bridging the wealth divide in Philadelphia, the nation’s poorest big city, and “building a first class modern education system.” She has advocated for more funds for education from both the city and the state. In Harrisburg, she sponsored legislation that allowed Philadelphia to enact a $2-a-pack cigarette tax to raise money for Philadelphia schools.

Her campaign spokesperson said she would release more detailed proposals on education in February.

María Quiñones-Sánchez

Maria Quiñones-Sánchez

Maria Quiñones-Sánchez is a self-described “pragmatic progressive” who began her political involvement in high school. Born in Puerto Rico, she moved with her family to Philadelphia at 6 months old and was raised in public housing primarily by her mother, who worked in a factory.

In 2007, she became the first Puerto Rican woman elected to the City Council. During her term, she chaired the education committee and the committee on appropriations. She fought for more school funding and was active during the height of the COVID pandemic in getting school buildings opened as hubs for community resources. She also lobbied to create the School Building Authority to help the superintendent and board assess the district’s construction and maintenance needs, and urged an overhaul of the district’s school feeder patterns to better reflect changing neighborhoods, among other initiatives.

In outlining a detailed education vision for 2030, Quiñones-Sánchez calls for a review of the city’s early education services, which includes public and private options, and wants to make Community College of Philadelphia free to all students.

She founded the city’s first bilingual charter school, Eugenio Maria de Hostos.

As a student, Quiñones-Sánchez attended Girls High School and Jules E. Mastbaum High School in Philadelphia, where she joined ASPIRA, an advocacy group focusing the education and development of Latinx youth.

Rebecca Rhynhart

Rhynhart won an upset victory five years ago over Alan Butkovitz to claim the city controller’s job, becoming the first woman in that position. She ran as an outsider and a reformer bucking the Democratic machine. Her TV ads promised to clean up an inefficient and corrupt government. She easily won re-election in 2021.

The school district is independent from the city government, so as controller she had no power to audit or investigate it. But in her campaign materials, she says that one of her priorities as mayor would be “urgently fixing our public schools to give all students a real chance at meeting their potential,” along with improving blighted neighborhoods and strengthening anti-violence initiatives.

As the city’s fiscal watchdog, Rhynhart audited the police department, and released reports critical of the prison system and of city accounting practices.

Previously, she was budget director and city treasurer under former Mayor Michael Nutter. She was chief administrative officer in the Kenney administration for less than a year before resigning last October to run for mayor. Former Mayor John Street has endorsed her, saying that she understands city government and is best equipped to improve services.

Rhynhart has a daughter who attends a Philadelphia public school.

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

Philly Board of Education sues city, says new building code could delay school opening for thousands of students

2023-01-21T00:52:34+00:00

The Philadelphia school board has filed a lawsuit claiming a city building code designed to curb asbestos and other safety hazards will needlessly prevent many schools from opening next school year.

The board alleges that a code update in June gives power to a mayor-appointed committee to certify the safety of school buildings. The board worries that the committee, heavily representing unions but with just one seat representing the leadership of the school district, will lack the expertise and credentials to set building safety standards.

There are also seats for a City Council member, for several parents, including one who is an environmental advocate, and for one to three non-voting students.

Board President Reginald Streater issued a statement saying the amendment “could needlessly threaten the opening of many District school buildings at the start of the next school year, jeopardizing the health, safety, and welfare of our students.”

City officials strongly criticized the board’s decision to sue rather than work with them on building safety.

“Philadelphia’s schools have endured decades of disinvestment, and overcoming the challenges this raises requires partnership and problem-solving between the District, City, and other stakeholders. We believe this goal is best achieved through collaboration and not through litigation,” said Mayor Jim Kenney’s communications director Sarah Peterson.

City Council President Darrell Clarke and Education Committee Chair Isaiah Thomas issued their own statement calling the lawsuit “unfortunate.”

“We have seen firsthand the troubling disparities among schools,” the statement reads. “To respond to a plan to get rid of asbestos and other hazards with a lawsuit reinforces that the School District is working to maintain the status quo, rather than working collaboratively to bring our schools into the 21st Century.”

And former council member Helen Gym, now running for mayor and one of the amendment’s sponsors, said that instead of suing, “the school district should be reaching out to parents, labor partners, and the mayor’s office to take immediate action to address the deplorable condition of our schools. The lack of trust is a real and significant issue.”

Jerry Jordan, president of the Philadelphia Federation of Teachers, called the lawsuit “disappointing” and also said collaboration would be a better way to ensure safer schools.

The law targeted by the suit was created by Bill 210685-AA. It sprang from years of concern, community mistrust, and controversy over asbestos hazards in the Philadelphia School District. The district closed several school buildings for months in 2019 to clean out asbestos, and the controversy flared up again in fall 2021, when City Council held hearings and introduced the bill.

Critics blamed the district for lacking transparency and failing to remediate dangers to students and staff. District buildings are on average 75 years old and house 130,000 students and 18,000 employees.

The city has long regulated school building safety. The update last year added asbestos to requirements covering electrical, water quality, lead paint and other potential hazards, and created the advisory board. The new rules would apply to one-third of the district’s 200-plus buildings next August, another third in August 2024, and the final third in August 2025.

“One of our concerns is this advisory board is allowed to consist of individuals with no specific scientific, technical or environmental expertise or licensing,” Streater’s statement said. “The District would be required to accept and meet these standards before a building is allowed to open,” potentially endangering in-person learning for thousands of students.

The 21-page district complaint notes that, as of now, nobody has been named to the board, called the Facility Safety and Improvement Advisory Group.

According to the complaint, the city’s managing director could adopt practices that would close schools “based on vague, undeveloped, and unidentified practices.” And it notes that state and federal environmental laws already apply to the district.

In the past, advocates also have questioned the safety of drinking water in schools. A report last year found that many school drinking fountains still had high lead levels.

Streater said in his statement that the lawsuit does not seek to avoid accountability. Instead, the suit, if successful, “should enable the District to focus its resources on the existing extensive federal, state and local regulations and on the goal we all share: maintaining nurturing, welcoming and safe school environments for all our children and staff.”

He said that last year the district completed more than 4,400 asbestos-related abatement actions in 241 buildings, that 168 school buildings have lead-safe or lead-free certifications, and that the district has installed 1,665 hydration stations in schools.

Jordan in his statement charged that the district has fought union efforts to create safer schools. “Data and information sharing, as well as remediation plans, have been spotty at best, and the bill passed by City Council allows a base layer of oversight into some of the most critical remediation processes.”

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

Philadelphia school leaders urge parents to register their children early for kindergarten

2023-01-19T22:22:08+00:00

Tony Watlington still remembers crying on his first day of kindergarten, as he looked out the window of his classroom and watched his mother and uncle drive away after they dropped him off.

His misery “lasted about eight minutes,” he said. “Then I loved school.”

The Philadelphia superintendent told that story Thursday as he and other school officials urged families to enroll their children for kindergarten next year — and to do so early, if possible, so that both parents and the district can plan.

“Kindergarten plays a critical role in setting the foundation for success in school,” Watlington said at the Potter-Thomas Elementary School in Kensington, during a launch event for this year’s Thrive at Five campaign.

Research shows that children who attend kindergarten have better academic skills, better social-emotional and behavioral skills, and higher confidence levels throughout their school careers, he said.

The district would like parents to register their children by May 31, although applications are accepted after that, all the way into the fall after school starts. All children who turn five years old by Sept. 1 are eligible for kindergarten next year.

One major incentive for parents to enroll their children early: Kindergarten seats in a given school might fill up quickly, and those who register later might not get their child a seat at their neighborhood school.

Kindergarten is not mandatory in Pennsylvania, and not fully reimbursed by the state, and many districts still offer only half-day programs. Amid fiscal problems in the district, former Superintendent David Hornbeck in the 1990’s nevertheless worked to make all programs full-day.

Diane Castelbuono, the district’s deputy chief for early childhood, said that kindergarten enrollment declined in district schools from roughly 9,880 students in 2019-20 to 7,140 in 2020-21 — a 28% drop —but then jumped by 9% in 2021-22.

At the same time, kindergarten enrollment lagged behind enrollment in the first grade by about 600 students in 2021-22, which indicates the likelihood that not all eligible children enrolled in kindergarten that year.

Historically, about 35% of parents who enroll their children in kindergarten register in the summer and fall, Castelbuono said, but the district is hoping this year to reduce that percentage.

Public school enrollment is down nationally, especially in the elementary grades, Castelbuono noted, but officials are hoping to buck that trend here. This year, about 9,000 students have enrolled in kindergarten. The district’s goal is for between 10,000 and 11,000 students to enroll in kindergarten for the 2023-24 school year, she added.

Mia DeJesus, a kindergarten student at Potter-Thomas Elementary, helped promote kindergarten’s long-term benefits at a Jan. 19 event with Philadelphia school leaders.

During Thursday’s Thrive by Five event, Watlington and Castelbuono got help from Mia, a kindergarten student at Potter-Thomas Elementary, and her mother Jasmine DeJesus.

“Kindergarten is important on many levels,” DeJesus said. It helps her daughter “think outside the box, with things I can’t teach at home.”

Kindergarten has helped Mia with problem-solving, and she can now count to high numbers, DeJesus added.

“I know sight words and letters from A to Z,” Mia said.

She then climbed on a chair to reach the microphone and added: “If you want to go to kindergarten, you have to be five.”

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.

Nearly half of Philadelphia seniors still working to meet new state graduation requirements

2022-12-21T00:40:12+00:00

Nearly 4,000 high school seniors in Philadelphia schools have yet to meet new graduation requirements imposed by a state law that goes into effect for this school year.

As of last week, 52% of seniors, or 4,223 out of 8,120 students, had met state requirements for graduation, according to district officials who testified before the City Council on Friday.

In their presentation to the council, Philadelphia school officials estimated that only 28% of seniors scored proficient or advanced on all three state Keystone exams, which is one of the paths students can take to earn a diploma. (The Keystones are generally taken in the 11th grade.) Another 290 students — or 4% — are on track to graduate because they passed one state test and had a high enough composite score in all three.

The remainder have used alternate pathways created by Act 158, the state law signed by former Gov. Tom Wolf in 2018 as a way to offer students who do not score at least proficient on the three Keystone exams more opportunities to graduate. It takes effect with this year’s graduating class.

Aside from relying on proficiency and composite scores on state exams, students can earn diplomas by attaining an industry-based certification in a career and technical education program; scoring high enough on tests like the Advanced Placement or International Baccalaureate exams; or following an “evidence-based” pathway approved by the Pennsylvania Department of Education, which can include work or internships outside of school and acceptance into a four-year college.

The district reported that 94 students so far have met requirements by getting a CTE certification, 452 through an alternate assessment, and 208 through an “evidence-based” project. In addition, 326 students with disabilities approaching the age of 21 are on track to graduate via a separate state law, and another 587 are meeting the goals and objectives of their Individualized Education Plan.

That leaves 3,897 students who the district characterized as still “in progress” to meet the requirements.

Those statistics track with a recent report from the Philadelphia Education Research Consortium on the implications of the 2018 changes to graduation pathways.

Using data from 2018 and 2019, the group projected that more than half the district’s students will need additional help to either pass state Keystone exams, or graduate under one of the other pathways. The group also found that in 2018 and 2019, only about a third of students scored high enough on all the Keystones tests to graduate based on those results under Act 158.

“The share of students who would have met or almost met Keystone pathways varied based on race/ethnicity, economically disadvantaged status, and other student characteristics, reflecting local, state, and nationwide historical inequities in standardized tests,” the consortium said in its October report.

Principal Brianna Dunn-Robb of Constitution High School said there’s an intense effort under way to help those students who aren’t on track to earn a diploma yet.

“We’re working hard in collaboration with the district to meet the needs of all individual students,” she said. “It takes a lot of planning and working to see what pathways students will follow. There is a lot of data collection on a weekly basis.”

Students can “flow in and out of different pathways” throughout the year, she said. The key is to get more cooperation from local businesses to increase internship opportunities and institutions of higher education to expand dual enrollment, she said.

School officials also told council members that the city government itself could offer internship opportunities, recruit private employers to offer them as well, and establish a database of participating businesses and organizations.

“I hope we look upon this as not just a school district issue, but a city of Philadelphia project to assure all our graduates are college and career ready,” Dunn-Robb 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.

Watlington revamps Philadelphia schools leadership in bid to accelerate academic gains

2022-12-20T17:13:31+00:00

In what he says is an effort to accelerate lagging student achievement in the district, Philadelphia Superintendent Tony Watlington is reorganizing his top management team and conducting a national search for three key positions.

Watlington is eliminating the position of chief of schools, now held by Evelyn Nunez, and creating two associate superintendents, one for elementary schools and one for secondary schools. Nunez will be put in charge of elementary schools, and Tomas Hanna, now the chief of talent for the Pennsylvania Department of Education, will return to the district — where he was once a principal and labor negotiator — to lead secondary schools.

The district also plans to conduct a national search for two new positions Watlington has created: chief of curriculum and instruction, and chief of special education and diverse learners. There will also be a national search for the deputy superintendent of operations position.

The shake-up comes roughly half a year into Watlington’s tenure as superintendent; during that time, his mantra has been that Philadelphia should become the “fastest improving large urban school district in the country.” But the district’s scores on state reading and math tests this year fell below pre-COVID levels, and lag way behind the long-term benchmarks set by the board, according to a Chalkbeat analysis.

The Philadelphia Board of Education’s ultimate goal is to have all children meet grade-level standards in literacy and math, and all students graduate with the skills necessary for success in college or career.

“If we are going to accelerate our performance and achieve our goals faster, we need to be strategic,” Watlington said in a Monday statement announcing the leadership changes. “This requires something different and better in terms of strategy.”

Hanna and Nunez will report to ShaVon Savage, the deputy superintendent for academics, who will stay in that post. Deputy Chief of Curriculum and Instruction Nyshawana Francis-Thompson will fill in as the interim chief of curriculum and instruction while the national search takes place. And Sonya Berry, the current deputy chief of specialized services, will be the interim chief of special education and diverse learners.

Before going to work for the state, Hanna was the chief human capital officer in New York City public schools, and then superintendent of the 5,300-student Coatesville district in Chester County. He started his career in Philadelphia, and was once principal of Kensington High School. He was also a lead district negotiator in teachers union talks under former superintendent Arlene Ackerman.

Watlington also announced Monday that the district has hired Mike Herbstman, the chief financial officer for the Prince George’s County school district in Maryland, to replace the outgoing Uri Monson. Herbstman, who’s also worked in public schools in Chicago and Alexandria, Va., will join the district in February.

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.