PHILADELPHIA (KYW Newsradio) — The School District of Philadelphia is taking its back-to school message to the streets, with a citywide bus tour.
The three-week tour launches Monday, with two wrapped buses making 31 stops throughout the city.
Along the tour, students can get free backpacks containing school supplies, register for classes and even receive state-required immunizations.
Parents can also get information about the return to full-time in-person classes on August 31.
“Some people are still a little leery with COVID-19, as they should be,” said Superintendent William Hite at a news conference Thursday at district headquarters.
“But by the same token, we wanted to make sure we were getting the information out to communities.”
The idea for the first-ever bus tour grew, Hite said, from a spring survey in which parents revealed a need for varied channels of district information.
Related
“One of the things that came out in the survey was this notion of communication, and making sure we were able to get information to people about things that they needed to do in order to get their children back into schools,” Hite said.
The effort is funded by a $150,000 grant from the Independence Blue Cross Foundation.
“We know that neighborhood by neighborhood, even block by block, people’s access to health care and information can be very different,” said IBC Foundation president Lorina Marshall-Blake.
The tour’s first stop is Monday at 10 a.m. at the Jardel Recreaton Center. Click here for the full bus tour.
Related
