August 03, 2016
Thom Carroll/PhillyVoice
The School District of Philadelphia headquarters on North Broad Street.
A four-week summer program provided by the School District of Philadelphia – offering math and reading help to students who had been in classrooms without permanent teachers at the helm – itself was plagued by low attendance.
Per the Philadelphia Public School Notebook, the program had been designed for more than 2,500 students in grades K-7, who lacked permanent teachers for at least two-thirds of the school year. Data released by the school district shows there were just shy of 1,500 students enrolled in the program.
However, less than 700 students were in attendance by July 21, while the district also lacked any real way of tracking how many students in the program fit the criteria for which it was intended.
For example, the Notebook report states Cayuga Elementary School in North Philadelphia opened the program to all students, regardless of whether or not they lacked a permanent teacher.
The summer program, which was borne out of the high teacher vacancy rate within the school district and a lack of qualified substitutes, was announced back in the spring. Councilwoman Helen Gym, Philadelphia City Council's chair of the Children and Youth Committee, voiced concerns earlier this year about the teaching vacancies and the school district’s decision to outsource its substitute service in an attempt to better staff classes.
In March, a group called the Philadelphia School Partnership released a study claiming the attendance rate of Philadelphia public school teachers lagged behind the national average at 100 city schools. Gym, though, dismissed the report and questioned the organization's credibility.
Beginning in September, the school district will use a new firm to handle its substitute teacher staffing. In May, school officials announced Kelly Educational Staffing was the district's new staffing vendor for substitutes.
Read the full report at TheNotebook.org
