PHILADELPHIA (KYW Newsradio) — The start of school is more than a month away, but the district's annual back-to-school bus tour is already on the move.
The first stop on the tour, Monday, was Martin Luther King High School in East Germantown, where hundreds of students and their parents turned out to snag free backpacks and school supplies.
Students and their parents went from tent to tent, picking up free school goodies.
Bianca Gilles, 11, got hers: "A water bottle, a cup, a lot of books, drawing stuff."
Bianca says she'll be all ready to start sixth grade at Thomas K. Finletter Academics Plus School.
"I like when schools are giving free stuff for the students. That's really kind. I like that."
Through Aug. 18, the tour will stop at 10 more sites around the city, offering school supplies, on-the-spot enrollment and information about physical exams for athletics.
This is the second back-to-school tour for the superintendent, and the first under his ambitious five-year plan.
"We're going into the new school year with a lot more momentum. Students' attendance is up by three percentage points over last year," said Superintendent Tony Watlington. And teacher attendance is up 7% over last year.
Teachers are preparing for the new school year, as well, he said. Math teachers are attending sessions on newly purchased instructional materials.
"Teachers are hard at work getting trained. They've been acclimated to that new curriculum. It will take us some time to get really good at it. So we're going to do math this year and we'll phase in reading and science later."
The first day of school is Sept. 5, the day after Labor Day.
