PHILADELPHIA (KYW Newsradio) — Parents of students in criteria-based middle schools say they’re feeling betrayed by the School District of Philadelphia’s change to lottery-based admissions for high schools.
Families say they were led to believe their students in special admission middle schools would be given preference for admission to those magnet high schools.
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Traditionally, the student body at criteria-based schools has been whiter and wealthier than the district average.
Last month, in an effort to improve equity, the district established a special admission school lottery for qualified students, with preference given to historically underrepresented ZIP codes. Previously, magnet school administrators had some say over students admitted to their schools.
Miriam Hill, the parent of an eighth-grader at Carver School of Engineering and Science, said the principal told parents if their children got A’s and B’s, they would get preference for admission to Carver High.
Hill told the school board Thursday that the district’s new system is pulling the rug out from under these students.
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“By implementing a lottery at ninth grade, the district has upended the commitment it made. You told our kids their hard work would pay off, and now you’re saying ‘never mind,’ ” Hill argued. “This lottery is supposed to help Black and brown children and those who are low-income. At Carver, it will harm some of these very kids, and there is a simple way to avoid that.”
Parent Tanya Folk suggested grandfathering in current middle schoolers.
“Any new rule should apply to new students, so families are fully aware that they will have to endure not one but two lotteries within one school,” Folk said.
Karyn Lynch, the district’s chief of student support services, said parents should have never been promised that their middle schoolers would get preference to get into criteria-based high schools.
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“There’s a process that takes place in each of these schools to be admitted to the high school. It’s called the school selection process,” Lynch explained. “They would have to go through that process in order for that to happen, so I’m not sure how there would be an automatic admission at the high school.
“It’s not in any policy that there would be an automatic admission from the middle school for eighth-graders to go to the high school.”
Students have until midnight on Sunday to submit applications to their preferred schools.