The Notebook, December 3, 2019 by Dale Mezzacappa
The District has launched comprehensive review of neighborhood elementary schools that will seek to predict demographic changes rather than just react to them. It also aims to increase access to pre-K and smooth out the transitions between grade levels.
Ask Superintendent William Hite why the Philadelphia School District has started a massive planning process now – an endeavor that could reshape the landscape of schools in the city – and he presents a simple fact: Five years ago, Mayfair Elementary School had 1,200 students. Today it has 2,400.
Once District leaders absorbed the magnitude of the upheaval in this modest Northeast rowhouse community, they launched the construction of a 10-classroom addition. They are now in the process of building an entirely new school in the neighborhood. But, for the most part, the District found itself in reaction mode, unprepared for such a dramatic shift in so short a time.
“We saw how quickly the demographics changed,” Hite said.
The questions arose: Where else was this happening? And what should we do?
After more than a year of preparation, the District has launched its attempt at finding answers: the Comprehensive School Planning Review (CSPR). By combining community input and demographic data, the process aims to bring equity and efficiency to a sprawling system and balance anticipated population changes, neighborhood and school histories, and the wishes of students and families.
It sounds logical and promising, but the initiative comes at a time when trust in the administration is at a low point, fueled by what the District acknowledges has been an inadequate response to alarming reports of potentially dangerous flaking asbestos in some schools. The Hite administration hopes to restore faith in its intentions and competence through an inclusive process that compiles reliable data and provides meaningful opportunities for school communities to help design plans for their neighborhoods.
Exactly what the plan might produce is unclear. So far, District leaders have articulated some basic goals. One is increasing access to pre-K, and another is refining the hodgepodge of grade configurations and feeder patterns in schools to create “thoughtful transitions” and sensible K-12 pathways. They also want to maximize building utilization so they can “invest limited capital dollars where needed most.”
The District is prepared to consider multiple options to achieve these goals, including closures, consolidations, expansions, new construction, and catchment area changes – all of which have wider implications. Many in-demand schools have large enrollments from outside their regular catchment areas, and these liberal transfer policies that parents are used to are likely to be tightened.
But there are minefields and questions aplenty. Redrawing catchment areas can upend property values. Issues about race and gentrification loom large.
Other districts, including New York City and San Francisco, are stressing racial and socioeconomic desegregation as one path to better schools. The reality that schools are stratified by race and income, which continues to define most urban areas in America, has even drawn the attention of Democratic presidential contenders. In an effort to address it, several of them have come out with plans encompassing not just educational improvement, but also increased investment in housing discrimination issues.
But although desegregation has been raised by some parents, most of them white, District leadership doesn’t see it as a path to Hite’s bottom-line goal – equity for all students.
“Different resources are needed for those learning to speak English, those who are two to three years behind in reading, for those who tend not to attend school regularly or graduate,” Hite said. “The equity question for me is making sure we’re able to provide those resources regardless of where they attend school.”