A charter school gets a reprieve, and a school selection update: Takeaways from January’s Philly school board meeting

Philadelphia’s school board reversed its position on a city charter Thursday night, granting Southwest Leadership Academy a reprieve after it had initially moved to close the school.

The charter school, which educates children in grades K-8, had been cited for academic, financial and operational deficiencies in 2022. After a nonrenewal hearing in 2023, the board said the evidence for closure was strong, and voted to close. The school appealed.

CEO Leigh Purnell said that while the school at 71st Street and Paschall Avenue had some remaining struggles, it has made significant academic strides since 2022.

Last school year, Southwest Leadership Academy Charter School students posted big gains on standardized tests. The school bested the district’s median test score, grew faster than the state average, and fared better than most of its neighborhood competitors.

Purnell said the school has added academic interventionists to help zero in on individual student needs, but also added more social-emotional supports, such as individual counseling. It now has Saturday programming and a summer bridge program.

All those factors caused the district to take another look at its case, Purnell said.

The board Thursday night reversed its vote to non-renew the school’s charter, and gave Southwest Leadership a five-year charter retroactive to 2022, Purnell said, with 19 conditions including those related to standards around academics and changes to the composition of its board.

Charter chief Peng Chao cited “updated and positive outcomes from the 2022-23 school year” as a main reason for the about-face.

School board president Reginald Streater said he is cheered by the academic progress and wants “to continue our partnership in the best interest of students,” but things are not perfect.

“I do remain concerned about the school’s current financial position,” Streater said. “It is imperative that the school’s board of trustees prioritize the critically important work it must to do to stabilize the school’s finances.”

Board member Sarah-Ashley Andrews also said questions remain surrounding the school’s governance and organizational compliance, but the school and charter office are working together, and that “gives me hope that the school is headed in the right direction.”

Purnell said the process was exhaustive, and, in a sense, destabilizing; some teachers and families left because they were worried about a possible closure. But, she said, the tide is turning, and applications are up.

“We fought against all of those factors, and our students and staff were able to be successful,” said Purnell. “I’m really grateful we were able to persevere.”

Multiple Southwest Leadership Academy parents, students and staff told the board how much their school means to them, calling it a place of caring and standards.

“This school has helped me flourish and become the overachieving student I am,” eighth grader Djibrill Koita said. “When I came to school, I felt safe.”

Superintendent Tony B. Watlington Sr. said changes to the way students apply and are admitted to criteria-based schools meant more children participated in the selection process.

Overall, 17,401 students applied in 2023; 16,503 applied in 2022.

“As a team, I think we’ve done a much better job, not a perfect job” at the school-selection process, Watlington said.

But a number of speakers raised objections to the process, including a handful of students from Mayfair Elementary in the Northeast and one of their teachers, Kristyn McCrohan.

Lowering some schools’ standards is the reason more students are applying to criteria-based schools, McCrohan said, and that shouldn’t be the case. Instead, “it should be because the district has done the work to produce equal opportunities in middle schools.”

Friday is the deadline for students to accept or reject their school-selection offers. Once those decisions are registered, the district will begin making offers to students on wait-lists.

A number of students asked for district leaders to intervene at Masterman, a top city magnet. The students said changes to the school’s schedule have lessened opportunities in world language offerings, science labs and extracurriculars.

Deputy Superintendent Jermaine Dawson said he met with Masterman’s Home and School Association this week and is working on resolving some of the issues.

“We do believe in Masterman, as we do in all schools in the School District of Philadelphia,” Dawson said.