Some Philly schools are losing teachers because of parking woes. City Council says it can’t do much.

Academy at Palumbo is an acclaimed magnet high school, with strong academics and a diverse student body.

But when principal Kiana Thompson interviews candidates for open positions there, she braces herself for the inevitable question: “What’s the parking like at your school?”

Her honest answer: Not good.

“I’ve had people that we’ve made offers to that have declined because they said they can’t deal with the anxiety of not being able to park,” said Thompson. “I love my school, but the parking is the worst thing about working there.”

Just a few blocks away from the Italian Market in South Philadelphia, Palumbo is sandwiched between businesses and rowhomes at 11th and Catharine. Like many district schools — the exact number in this situation is not clear — the school has no designated parking for employees.

In the nation’s poorest big city, in a district where just 36% of students can read at grade level and 22% are proficient in math, staff parking may seem like small potatoes. But quality-of-life issues like having a place to park — so you don’t spend time every morning searching, so you don’t have to keep moving your car throughout the day and interrupt classes — can have a real effect on whether schools can attract and retain teachers and other staff, and that in turn very much affects how students learn.

The issue was front and center recently when the school board asked City Council for more money to run the district, and for assistance in other ways, including providing street parking for schools that lack dedicated lots — especially in neighborhoods where employees have to park far away and have safety concerns.

“God bless you on that one,” Council President Darrell L. Clarke said at the hearing last week. “I’m sure there are a lot of people who would like to have parking on their street, let alone their workplace. I’ll let you figure that one out.”

(Mayor Jim Kenney suggested officials try a pilot where employees park in a remote location and a van or bus takes them to school; school board members said they’d be willing to try that but didn’t have money to pay for the program.)

Thompson, of Palumbo, has been trying to figure out parking for years, to little avail. When she was a teacher at the school’s opening 17 years ago, spots were slightly easier to come by, but they’ve disappeared — when bike lanes were installed, when an empty lot became a park, as the neighborhood got more popular.

“I talked to the city; they said it was a Parking Authority issue,” said Thompson, who’s worried about new townhomes being built across the street that could eat more into available spots. “The Parking Authority said it wasn’t their issue, it was the neighbors’ issue, and the neighbors would never agree” to special parking for school staff.

Rich Lazer, the Philadelphia Parking Authority’s executive director, said in a statement that PPA is “always open” to help find fixes to parking issues, but noted that “while the PPA does not have the authority to make unilateral decisions on parking, we do work under the city’s direction to help solve problems and find solutions where and when possible.”

At Palumbo, a number of spaces that allowed for all-day, permitted parking have converted to two-hour spots over the years. Like many of her colleagues, counselor Chris Donnelly has alarms set on her phone to remind her when she’s got to move her car — several times a day.

“I have had situations where I’m talking with a kid who’s in crisis and my alarm goes off,” said Donnelly. She would never interrupt a student who needs her urgently, but that means she risks a ticket. And she often feels like a valet, moving cars for staff who can’t leave their classes, or for college representatives visiting the school.

Some teachers take public transportation to work (although the school has been notified that SEPTA is proposing to make the nearby bus route stop less frequently, Thompson said); others ride bicycles. But that’s not practical for everyone, depending on where they live and their post-school responsibilities. Donnelly said she’s not expecting anyone to build a lot for teachers but is incredulous that the city is balking on solutions.

“People are leaving the teaching field,” she said. “Can they make something a little easier for us? They should put their money where their mouth is — you want to draw more teachers? This isn’t even a luxury.” .

Donnelly and Thompson say it’s tough to get parents to come to events at Palumbo; many have said that’s because of parking.

The Philadelphia Federation of Teachers’ contract does address parking, saying “provisions shall be made as rapidly as possible” for employee parking near schools. But PFT president Jerry Jordan has been involved in union contracts for decades, and there’s been almost no movement, he said.

“The district doesn’t want to have language that mandates the parking for them,” said Jordan. “They resist changing the language.”

Teachers and other school staffers absolutely transfer schools or leave the district over parking, and have for years, said Jordan. And as the city grapples with a gun violence epidemic, proximity to a building matters.

On a recent day, there was a shooting near the Blaine School in North Philadelphia, which does have a parking lot.

“Teachers were walking out to get to their cars, and a person was shot on the street,” Jordan said. “Thank God, they were able to run back into the school building, because their cars were right there. What if they weren’t?”

Tamir Harper regrets not thinking about parking when he chose his school, Lea Elementary in West Philadelphia.

“Everything is pretty much two-hour parking, which causes problems with teachers finding parking,” said Harper, who thinks the Philadelphia Parking Authority should give teachers permits to park near their schools.

Councilmember Jamie Gauthier helped teachers at Powel Elementary in West Philadelphia get special parking permits for school staff, but they’re not free — the cost is roughly the same as a transit pass, Gautheir said. But few have taken the city up on the offer, Gauthier said at the Council hearing. Still, she raised permits-for-a-fee as a possibility for other schools.

Nicole Wyglendowski, a teacher at Steel Elementary in Nicetown, takes public transportation to work but feels for her colleagues who have to drive. The school has a parking lot too small to fit everyone who needs a space, so once it’s full, people park each other in, or hunt for street parking.

“It’s such a thing at school; there’s announcements all day long — ‘So and so has to leave, could you please move your car?’” said Wyglendowski, who knows there are no easy answers but believes the city and school district should be encouraging people to use public transportation.

Steel is a hard-to-staff school, and a perk like a transit pass or guaranteed parking could help draw more candidates to teach there, Wyglendowski said

After all, when prospective teachers take to social media to scope out schools, the same things are always at the top of their mind, she said.

“People ask, ‘How is this school?’ ... They’ll say whether the staff bathrooms are good or if the school has a parking lot,” said Wyglendowski. “That’s what people want to know.”