Back to school 2024-25: Here are 7 things Philly Superintendent Watlington wants you to know.

Philadelphia School District teachers return to classrooms Tuesday. Students come back a few days later, on Aug. 26.

In advance of his third year as Philadelphia’s schools chief, Superintendent Tony B. Watlington Sr. sat down with The Inquirer.

Here are 7 things to know about the 2024-25 school year:

The district’s 118,000 students will start the year with a new English Language Arts curriculum. The district spent $25 million on two programs: Expeditionary Learning for K-8 students, and StudySync for those in high school.

Both rely on proven strategies, like the science of reading, Watlington said.

“We know it works,” said Watlington.

In the past, different schools and learning networks might use different curricula, which presented a problem in a district where many students move from school to school.

The new ELA curriculum follows the introduction of a new math curriculum, Illustrative Math, last school year. Both are key, Watlington said, because “we are going to continue to put our foot on the gas to accelerate student achievement.”

Teachers generally liked the new math curriculum, but Watlington did say he heard one frequent concern — they didn’t have enough time to absorb Illustrative Math before having to teach it.

“They told us the biggest Achilles heel was they needed more time to prep on the front end,” Watlington said. With the new English curriculum, the district had more time to show teachers what it was all about.

The district piloted a new, two-way communications system in the superintendent’s office in 2023-24. That will expand to the rest of the district this year; the school system historically has been regarded as tough for families and members of the public to navigate, and slow to respond.

Now, every phone call, email, and letter will be tracked, Watlington said, and so will response times.

“It helps us to make sure we reply in a timely manner, holds us accountable and the public gets a chance to rate us on a scale of 1 to 10 … in terms of our responsiveness and in terms of our professionalism and helpfulness,” said the superintendent.

Eventually, outreach to schools, not just the central office, will also be included in the new communications platform.

“Now, parents are not always right,” Watlington said. “Community members are not always right, just like superintendents and teachers are not always right, but we ought to hear from our constituents and we ought to really hear what they’re trying to tell us and we ought to help them to resolve their concerns. We are going to do a better job of that this year.”

Parker ran on a promise of year-round school, but shifted the language this year to say she wanted students to have “educational opportunities during nontraditional times.” Earlier this summer, the mayor announced 25 schools, including 20 in the district, will offer free before- and aftercare this school year. That care will be provided not by district staff, but by outside providers.

But parents and staff say they haven’t heard details of the program, like how many students will be offered spots, and providers say details have so far been scant on their end, too.

Asked when details will be provided, Watlington said: “Because it’s not built out just yet over the way it will be when we’re two, three years in, I think we’re probably at about the place you would expect for any new initiative.” The superintendent said the district would “overcommunicate with our parents, and we intend to do that.”

The plan is to offer year-round educational programming at some of the 20 schools the following school year, but it’s not clear how many schools might move to the new calendar.

Watlington underscored that no school would be selected for a year-round model without community buy-in.

“Parents and students have to see the benefit, and they’ve got to believe that it’s the right model for them,” Watlington said. “It never works to foist it or force it on communities.”

No year-round school calendar can be worked out without buy-in from the teachers’ union, either.

The Philadelphia Federation of Teachers’ contract was supposed to have expired this summer, but outgoing president Jerry Jordan negotiated a one-year extension before his June retirement. The new expiration date is August 2025.

Watlington on Wednesday said he had recently met with Arthur Steinberg, the new PFT president, to begin discussions.

“We all want the same thing at the end of the day,” Watlington said. “Improved student outcomes.”

Education for parents and families is coming back in a formal way. Parent University, which began in the Arlene Ackerman era, will launch in early 2025, Watlington said. The district will spend a minimum of $586,000 on it initially, officials said, with the aim of building the program each year. (Federal Title I guidelines mandate the district spend 1% of the district budget on parent engagement.)

The aim is to not only empower parents to help their children with reading and math skills, and social and emotional issues, but to enrich families themselves.

“If they’re pursuing more education, going for a GED, we’re going to be their partners,” Watlington said. “If they need help with financial literacy, we will be their partners.”

The programming will mostly be in neighborhoods, not at the district’s Center City headquarters.

“If we need to show up in barber shops, hair salons … rec centers, we will,” said Watlington.

Seven district schools received air-conditioning over the summer; two more should be cooled by the end of September and another school cooling system is in planning stages. All 10 air-conditioning systems were funded through a donation from Eagles quarterback Jalen Hurts.

Sixty-three schools citywide are still not adequately cooled; Watlington has said the district can’t fully air-condition all schools until 2027.

» READ MORE: These 10 Philly schools are getting AC thanks to Jalen Hurts. But 63 schools citywide are still sweltering.

Should hot weather cause building temperatures to rise above 90 degrees, students at the 63 schools without air-conditioning could be forced to lose instructional time while the rest of the district continues with class.

Watlington often reminds Philadelphia that his aim is for the district to become the fastest-improving big-city school system in the country. He nearly as often points out that according to an analysis by Harvard and Stanford Universities, Philadelphia made the quickest post-pandemic recovery of any urban district in math, and the second-fastest recovery in reading.

Judged by the gold standard national assessment of urban schools — the Trial Urban District Assessment, a special exam of the National Assessment of Educational Progress — Philadelphia had among the longest ways to go. In 2022, it ranked fifth from the bottom of 26 districts in fourth-grade reading and math.

In state exams, Philadelphia improved in 13 of 17 metrics in the 2022-23 school year; 2023-24 results have not yet been made public, as have the district’s final graduation and dropout numbers for last year. But, Watlington said, he’s hopeful that the district is trending in the right direction.

“We’re making some good progress,” Watlington said, “but I’ll be the first to tell you, we’ve got a long way to go.”