PHILADELPHIA (KYW Newsradio) — As students protested outside school headquarters on Thursday, the Philadelphia School District’s superintendent took steps to ease the impact of an admissions lottery that resulted in open seats in next year’s freshman class.
The students were rallying against staff cuts at their schools — cuts brought on by enrollment losses at magnet schools, after the district instituted an admissions lottery to promote equity. The lottery was only for students with qualifying PSSA scores or other criteria.
“Reinstating these test scores is not equitable by any means,” a junior at Saul Agricultural High School told the board. “A majority of our Saul family comes from low-income neighborhoods and other places that may not have always had the best access to education.”
Superintendent Tony Watlington said the district will allow 316 qualified students who didn’t get selected for their first-choice school the chance to fill empty seats at another of the 12 criteria-based schools. He also would allocate $3 million to try to limit staff losses at those schools to no more than two positions.
The 12 schools include:
• Philadelphia High School for Girls
• Franklin Learning Center (FLC)
• Saul High School
• Lankenau High School
• Motivation High School
• Hill-Freedman World Academy
• Parkway Northwest High School
• Creative and Performing Arts (CAPA) High School
• Parkway West High School
• Parkway Center City Middle College High School
• Science Leadership Academy (SLA) at Beeber
• Arts Academy at Benjamin Rush
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Watlington admitted his remedy was not perfect, because those schools would still have a total of 800 unfilled ninth-grade seats.
Board Vice President Mallory Fix-Lopez thanked the superintendent for what she called a “short-term Band-Aid” for magnet admissions.
“When there was a human aspect touch in the past, we saw how many students who never even applied got in through the back door. That is just not going to be tolerated,” she said.
Watlington said an external audit of the lottery is underway, with results expected in May or June.
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