Many Philly 8th graders don’t have access to algebra. These students want to fix that.

Rahim Gardner is super smart, but he couldn’t understand something fundamental about Nebinger Elementary in Bella Vista.

Why couldn’t his school offer algebra to eighth graders like him?

Gardner, 14, had read the research: Students who take algebra in eighth grade are far more likely to take advanced math and get lucrative jobs in science, technology, engineering, and math fields. And while some Philadelphia School District middle schools offer it, many don’t — and at Masterman, the city’s most elite magnet, you must have algebra to get in.

“The district can and should address this opportunity gap,” Gardner said. He had a workaround of sorts — a Nebinger parent volunteer taught algebra to a handful of students, who took the class in addition to their eighth-grade math course. But the students were not graded and received no credit for their work, and so Masterman remained out of reach.

Gardner and two of his classmates felt so strongly about fixing the problem that they took their case to the city school board in April, testifying about the need for the district to add opportunities for algebra — and world languages — at all schools.

It’s a perpetual problem for Ayana Townsend, Nebinger’s principal. The district’s staff allocations are enrollment-driven. If she has 30 eighth graders, she gets one teacher, no matter that middle schoolers’ needs are different than students in primary grades. There’s a real impact, Townsend said.

“The trend at Nebinger is we lose a great portion of our fourth- and fifth-grade students because we don’t have algebra or Spanish,” Townsend said. “Our feedback is, ‘We would stay if you had these classes to offer.’”

It breaks Ricky Tran’s heart. When the social studies teacher helps eighth graders think about which schools they want to apply to, “we had to straight-up tell them, ‘You can’t apply to Masterman because we don’t offer algebra,’” Tran said.

Enter Gardner and his classmates Jordyn Simmons and Christin White, who, with Tran’s encouragement, wrote out their arguments and took them to the board.

White told the board about how Nebinger sometimes has lots of supports, then often loses them. The school lost seven staff members in the 2022-23 school year, because of enrollment fluctuations and because it had been successful in advancing student achievement and so was deemed not in need of those supports.

“The way the system works threatens the stability and quality of our school,” White said. “Our students deserve stable, consistent resources. They shouldn’t have to go outside the neighborhood or fall behind to get them.”

Gardner pointed out that algebra in eighth grade shrinks math achievement gaps by race and income. And he noted that at Nebinger, 90% of white students passed state math exams, while less than one-third of Black students did.

All three Nebinger students got into magnet schools — White will attend Central High, Gardner Parkway Center City Middle College, and Simmons the Philadelphia High School for Creative and Performing Arts.

But this fight isn’t about them, they said.

“It’s for all the other kids,” said Simmons. “We all deserve the same opportunities for our future.”

The students’ words seemed to have made a difference.

When the 2023-24 school year begins, Nebinger will be part of an eighth-grade algebra pilot. Eleven students will take a hybrid algebra class, with a teacher working virtually four days a week and in person one day a week. (Jill Duink, the parent volunteer, will still come to Nebinger to help the algebra cohort, Townsend said.)

A cross-school algebra pilot was first offered this academic year, district spokesperson Monique Braxton said, with Northwest Philadelphia schools Jenks, Shawmont, and Lingelbach all participating with 34 students total enrolled. Next year, the program will expand, with five teachers teaching classes at 15 schools.

The goal, Braxton said, is “impacting the greatest number of students demonstrating algebra readiness, who without [the program] wouldn’t have access to algebra in eighth grade.”

Nebinger also found a way to add a Spanish teacher, a point of pride for Townsend and assistant principal Caroline Pomrink.

Townsend grew up in the suburbs and sends her children to school there.

“I look at the opportunities afforded to them — there’s no question in their budget, ‘Maybe we can’t have this,’” the principal said. “You know you have algebra, you know you have Spanish. I feel strongly that our children here, they shouldn’t be treated any different.”