The transition: More promises than plans

Details are still sketchy about what will be done to give displaced students a better experience in their new schools.

by Bill Hangley, Jr.

Photo: Harvey Finkle

Among the many unanswered questions is what will happen to the new playground at Taylor Elementary, installed by the Hamels Foundation, if Taylor loses as planned.

The Philadelphia School District’s plan for surviving its fiscal crunch is simple: Less must be more. 

And while the proposal to close or relocate 44 schools makes it clear how the District wants to handle part of the “less” side of the equation, just exactly how it will deliver on the promise of “more” is yet to be explained.

In community meetings across the city, parents, students, and teachers have gathered to learn about the District’s plans, expected to displace about 17,000 students. At every step, the District has insisted that closing schools will not only save money, but also improve conditions at the schools that remain. 

“I didn’t come to Philadelphia wanting to … close schools,” Superintendent William Hite told the audience at Bartram High in Southwest Philadelphia. “We have no choice. … So the question becomes, how do we use this situation to create better options for students?”

However, while parents, students and teachers have asked repeatedly about the cash-starved District’s plans for specific situations, officials have declined to share details. Instead, they have said that “school-by-school” planning will begin in February, and will include students and communities.

“We want to talk about what [receiving] schools will offer that are not offered right now,” Hite said. Those plans will be ready, he said, before the School Reform Commission votes on closures in March. “[The SRC] will understand what the implications are for these decisions,” Hite said.

More students, fewer teachers

Lessons from last year’s handful of closures suggest that the transition can be bumpy. Robin Dominick, head of the Home and School Association at Powel Elementary School, said Powel’s special education population tripled and class size swelled after nearby Drew was shuttered. Powel, with an enrollment of less than 200, took 38 students from Drew. 

This “should have been a trigger” for the District to commit more resources, she said.

Instead, the small school lost a teacher to budget cuts, and the fall was marred by classroom disruptions and a shortage of special education support, Dominick said. District officials eventually visited Powel to work on solutions, but only after parents appealed directly to the SRC. “There was never a meeting at Powel where they said, ‘This is how all this is going to affect you,’” Dominick recalled. 

In addition, newly-released District data show that many students simply swapped one underperforming school for another. Last year, after three high schools closed (Rhodes, FitzSimons, and Business and Technology), 415 students moved to other District schools. Of those students, over 40 percent – 168 altogether – ended up in schools now slated to close, including Strawberry Mansion, Germantown, Bok, and Robeson. 

David Kipphut, who is in charge of career and technical education (CTE), understands why parents worry. “They don’t have the details,” he said. The District must “clearly communicate what that promise is.”

Many are hungry for those details. During January’s Southwest Philadelphia community meeting, Bartram High School teacher Nina Petrasek said to Hite, “My concern is that these decisions have already been made without a concrete plan for implementation. How can you guarantee this will be effective … without telling us how it will be done?”

Hite responded by assuring her that transition planning will begin soon. Variations on that exchange played out across the city, as Hite and his staff have sought to assure audiences that “consolidated” schools will offer more to students. If one school has art, and another has music, a consolidated school will offer both, they say.