New story: Catchment or not, Penn Alexander likely to turn lower grade students away for the first time

**annie** · 08-15-2012, 03:02 PM

Originally Posted by Brian616

Where do you go if you can't get a spot at PAS? I'd have Greenfield, ICS, Stanton and maybe even Chester Arthur soon (not to mention the Philadelphia School, if it came to that).

I've been told before that when this happens (as it apparently has though at other schools it doesn't garner such attention) the district refers parents to the next closest school which probably would be either Lea or Wilson. The days of PAS administration being able to "make a call downtown" as was quoted in an article somewhere to get kids into the other "premiere" district schools are probably over. Powel has hosted capped out PAS kids in the past though I imagine with the increase of its catchment may be accepting fewer out of catchment students going forward.

St. Francis De Sales had at least one PAS capped out kid and the other small private schools like Spruce Hill Christian might as well. Some of the smaller start-up preschools have been trying to grow into kindergartens on up but I'm not sure how much progress they've made.

ETA: To be clear, there already have been PAS capped out kids at Lea and have been for years. This issue is more than a couple years old but has just become more pronounced lately. I don't know exactly how many there were last year at Lea as I generally do not interrogate small children about where they live while volunteering.

**seand** · 08-16-2012, 01:09 PM

Originally Posted by Brian616

What a G.D. mess.

I used to think I'd suck it up, pay the premium and move to the catchment in a few years from SWCC. However, I'm starting to think that my area will be more desirable for schools in another year or two. Where do you go if you can't get a spot at PAS? I'd have Greenfield, ICS, Stanton and maybe even Chester Arthur soon (not to mention the Philadelphia School, if it came to that).

In all fairness, your beautiful old houses and trolley lines will always make me jealous.

What parents are trying to do at Stanton by deliberately choosing a neighborhood school as a group, is essentially the same thing Annie and WPCNS are doing with Lea. A similar sort of commitment has been bumping along with variable degrees of success at Powell for some years. Noticeably I've been told Olivia Nutter attended Powell (which is some distance from their home) prior to transfering to Masterman.

In terms of transfering to Greenfield, ICS, whatever I think your chances coming from SWCC or West Philly are exactly the same, every bit as much of a long shot.

**annie** · 08-16-2012, 02:08 PM

Powel (with one l) has been a strong school to varying degrees for decades. It had an "open classroom" option long after most district school were forced to do away them. My understanding is the teachers at Powel didn't listen and it was a small enough school for the rebellion to go unnoticed by the district. The downside was it was a bit self-segregating. Neighbors with children now in their twenties/thirties sent them to Powel.

I will note that Powel's new expanded catchment covers the bulk of the Drexel's Home Ownership Assistance program boundary.

**annie** · 09-13-2012, 11:37 AM

The Musings of an Urban Christian

Tuesday late morning - I’m brought to the back to wait some more, and finally see the person who handles these kinds of placements. She tells me placements will take place later that evening, and then letters will go out. She then looks up Aaron in the system and can’t find him, in fact can’t find any Penn Alexander wait-list students. A quick call to Penn Alexander yields the fact that the forms, which Penn Alexander says were faxed in on August 15, were never received by Headquarters. The placement person asks for those forms to be refaxed immediately. (I wonder what would have happened had I not come into the office to inquire about this. What would have happened is that I and the other wait-listers from Penn Alexander would have been persona non grata to the District: none of us would have been assigned a school, and kindergarten would have started with none of us aware of what to do or where to go.)

Yikes.

**Eastcoast** · 09-13-2012, 01:43 PM

Originally Posted by annie

The Musings of an Urban Christian

Yikes.

Indeed. My stomach just turned a little.

**seand** · 09-13-2012, 01:48 PM

The degree to which the PAS response to the facts of overcrowding seems to be "ignore it and hope it goes away" is shocking indeed.

It seems like the one child at PAS, one at Lea is an increasing issue for a lot of parents in the neighborhood. Maybe it really is time to just surrender to the lottery, sibling preference of other schools so parents don't have to stress about dropping kids at two different places simultaneously.

**Brian616** · 09-14-2012, 12:41 PM

Originally Posted by Eastcoast

Indeed. My stomach just turned a little.

Jay-sus. I think it's actually easier to turn around your local catchement school than to get a a spot (or a straight answer) at PAS.

**Zigster** · 09-14-2012, 02:24 PM

The placement person also tells me Penn Alexander kids are assigned to Lea or Locke

This simply cannot be true. No PAS catchment resident has actually sent their kid to Locke.

If you are a PAS parent who has done this please post here and I will send you a $10 Starbucks gift card.

**annie** · 09-14-2012, 02:30 PM

Ahem.

K & 1st grade classes added to Lea!

And there was a capped PAS student assigned to Locke who was attending Locke. As of today, he is now at Lea.

**thoth** · 09-14-2012, 03:41 PM

Is Lea expected to see major overflow from PAS? I haven't been following how successful the parent group has been with recruiting new families there.

**annie** · 09-14-2012, 04:51 PM

According to a district document, last year Lea had 16 students from the Penn Alexander catchment and Powel had 4 from the Penn Alexander catchment. It didn't break it down by grade level and I'm not sure what the expected numbers are this year.

From the blog post I linked (who ended up enrolling his son at Lea for kindergarten), it sounds like the district was referring capped Penn Alexander students to Lea and Locke but none to Powel, possibly because Powel's own catchment just grew significantly. I don't know why Wilson wasn't on that list since it would be close to those living in the southern part of the PAS catchment unless they felt it might be targeted for closure.

Drew's closure resulted in about 80 new students, many of them English Language Learners, being assigned to Lea and it wasn't clear whether they would attend since Drew's former catchment wasn't exactly very near Lea. From want I'm hearing, it sounds like a lot of them are indeed attending.

The kindergartens and 1st grades were at or nearing the maximum already. Typically Lea received new arrivals (refugee resettlements and just new kids moving in to the area) over the course of the year and it was the case last year that they were pushing the maximum or over by year's end. It makes sense that they added classes now.

One of the board members of the West Philly Coalition for Neighborhood Schools lives in the Lea catchment and her daughter will be starting kindergarten at Lea next week.

I don't know if that answers your question but it's the information I have.

**thoth** · 09-14-2012, 05:13 PM

Originally Posted by annie

According to a district document, last year Lea had 16 students from the Penn Alexander catchment and Powel had 4 from the Penn Alexander catchment. It didn't break it down by grade level and I'm not sure what the expected numbers are this year.

From the blog post I linked (who ended up enrolling his son at Lea for kindergarten), it sounds like the district was referring capped Penn Alexander students to Lea and Locke but none to Powel, possibly because Powel's own catchment just grew significantly. I don't know why Wilson wasn't on that list since it would be close to those living in the southern part of the PAS catchment unless they felt it might be targeted for closure.

Drew's closure resulted in about 80 new students, many of them English Language Learners, being assigned to Lea and it wasn't clear whether they would attend since Drew's former catchment wasn't exactly very near Lea. From want I'm hearing, it sounds like a lot of them are indeed attending.

The kindergartens and 1st grades were at or nearing the maximum already. Typically Lea received new arrivals (refugee resettlements and just new kids moving in to the area) over the course of the year and it was the case last year that they were pushing the maximum or over by year's end. It makes sense that they added classes now.

One of the board members of the West Philly Coalition for Neighborhood Schools lives in the Lea catchment and her daughter will be starting kindergarten at Lea next week.

I don't know if that answers your question but it's the information I have.

That's pretty good. Sounds like things are moving in a positive direction.

**annie** · 11-29-2012, 11:17 AM

With deadline looming, a bus tour of schools

Friday is the deadline for district students to apply to a citywide or special-admission high school, or to transfer to a district neighborhood school.

Harrell's son can go to only one of the schools on the tour - Boys Latin Charter, a high school in West Philadelphia. The group also visited Young Scholars Frederick Douglass in North Philadelphia and Penn Alexander Elementary in West Philadelphia, both K-8 schools.

The Philadelphia School Partnership arranged this tour of "options" to parents and included Penn Alexander which doesn't accept voluntary transfers and is at capacity K-4 not accepting new in-catchment students. It seems cruel to waste the precious time of busy Philly parents like that.

**nola** · 11-30-2012, 12:47 PM

Not only cruel but potentially misleading. I wondered what schools were included as none were specified in the emails sent by greatphillyschools.com

Wasn't the transfer deadline extended to today to follow the announcement of proposed school closings? Any word on that?

**annie** · 11-30-2012, 04:34 PM

Originally Posted by nola

Wasn't the transfer deadline extended to today to follow the announcement of proposed school closings? Any word on that?

The transfer deadline was extended to today but the school closings announcement will not be made until December. Supposedly early December but I will believe it when I see it. At this point, I think the district has just accepted that the process will be a mess and there will likely have to be some kind of second round, especially at the high school level which is expected to be hit hard by the closures.

PSP subsequently informed me that they and PAS made it very clear to the visiting parents that transferring in to PAS is not an option. PSP also told me they would not consider funding a school on an ongoing basis the way PAS is by Penn. Their representative maintained the visit to PAS still had value to parents and served a purpose. I'm not really seeing it other than a photo op for PSP.

**seand** · 11-30-2012, 04:46 PM

Originally Posted by annie

The transfer deadline was extended to today but the school closings announcement will not be made until December. Supposedly early December but I will believe it when I see it. At this point, I think the district has just accepted that the process will be a mess and there will likely have to be some kind of second round, especially at the high school level which is expected to be hit hard by the closures.

Thats friggin ridiculous. How can you not get the closings worked out before the transfer deadline. There are are all kinds of potential problems, even legitimate safety concerns at the high school level in a probably a few instances of doing that.

**annie** · 11-30-2012, 05:02 PM

Originally Posted by seand

Thats friggin ridiculous. How can you not get the closings worked out before the transfer deadline. There are are all kinds of potential problems, even legitimate safety concerns at the high school level in a probably a few instances of doing that.

Whelp, they recently admitted that they screwed up the index they've been using to rate schools and hoped to use in determining which ones close.
Philly district suspends school rating system, seeks fix | Philadelphia Public School Notebook

An outside unnamed donor, very likely the William Penn Foundation, was going to fund a fancy new rating but...the head of William Penn resigned yesterday. The resignation may or may not be connected to a recent complaint against the foundation for conducting unregistered lobbying with the district.

The new "philanthropy": Private money shaping public policy in Philadelphia's education reform | Young Philly Politics

**seand** · 12-03-2012, 10:23 AM

Originally Posted by annie

An outside unnamed donor, very likely the William Penn Foundation, was going to fund a fancy new rating but...the head of William Penn resigned yesterday. The resignation may or may not be connected to a recent complaint against the foundation for conducting unregistered lobbying with the district.

The new "philanthropy": Private money shaping public policy in Philadelphia's education reform | Young Philly Politics

I have no problem with a foundation or charity funding a study or plan for educational reform that reflects their idea of where education reform should go, as long as thats up front and acknowledged. As I commented here several times, if the teacher's unions were more forward looking they would support/fund studies on alternate approaches to educational reform that actually worked (while remaining union) rather than dumping untold gobs of money into blindly defending the status quo.

More fleshed-out plans on the table to pick and chose from is a good thing.

**annie** · 12-03-2012, 10:46 AM

Originally Posted by seand

I have no problem with a foundation or charity funding a study or plan for educational reform that reflects their idea of where education reform should go, as long as thats up front and acknowledged.

Did you read the link? The issue wasn't the development of the plan but how they went about it circumventing the public process and disclosure. William Penn could have donated the money to the district, the district could have done an RFP process and ultimately ended up hiring BCG but the documents and methods would have been subject to public review and there wouldn't have (or shouldn't have) been a pre-determined outcome. Nowak had access to enough lawyers to know exactly what he was doing and it came back to bite WPF.

**seand** · 12-03-2012, 11:00 AM

I did and I'm saying while it sounds like it might be lobbying (and should be disclosed as such), so what? Foundations lobby on public policy. They do that on energy policy, they do that environmental policy. The point is to be upfront in your response and put up alternatives.

Most people (including myself) don't give a rats ass for or against the creeping privitization of the delivery end of public education. Thats neither inherently a solution or a problem. The issue is results.