700-plus open seats remain in Philly magnets after School District’s readmission fix

To help address the hundreds of empty seats in Philadelphia School District magnets caused by changes to the system’s admissions policy, officials promised a partial fix: reopening admissions to 316 eligible incoming ninth graders at 12 underenrolled schools.

But just 61 opted in, the district said this week — leaving 700-plus seats still open at the schools. The most popular of the 12 proved to be the Arts Academy at Benjamin Rush, Philadelphia High School for Creative and Performing Arts, Franklin Learning Center, and Saul High School.

Students could also choose from Lankenau, Motivation, Hill-Freedman World Academy, Parkway Northwest, Parkway Center City Middle College, Parkway West, Science Leadership Academy at Beeber, and Philadelphia High School for Girls.

Presumably, the 81% of students who had applied for admission at any of the 39 special-admissions schools but who did not reapply for a spot at the 12 schools had already made other plans, finding seats in charter or private schools or even leaving the city.

“We understand that these solutions, while they address the issues, are not perfect,” Superintendent Tony B. Watlington Sr. said in a statement. “We also recognize the need to improve the school selection process. As a result, we will develop a project team to conduct a thorough evaluation of the school selection process, to implement improvements in advance of next year’s school selection process.”

Officials did not release the exact numbers of vacancies and applications to each school. The seats were open to current eighth graders who met the qualifications for one or more criteria-based schools they had applied to last fall, but had not accepted any offers.

In addition to reopening admissions for a time, Watlington also pledged $3 million to limit enrollment-based staff losses to two at those 12 schools. When schools were initially given their 2023-24 budgets, some schools were projecting as many as seven staff losses.

As a result of the reallocation of funds, just three criteria-based schools will now lose more than two positions — Rush Arts, Hill-Freedman, and Girls High.

But, spokesperson Monique Braxton said in a statement: “Principals determine budget allocation and make school staffing decisions. In addition to enrollment projections, school budgets and staffing decisions can be influenced by external funding sources, like grants and government resources.”

Robin Cooper, president of the district’s administrators’ union, pushed back on the notion that principals have final say over their budgets. “It’s not an autonomous decision,” said Cooper, who leads Teamsters Local 502, the Commonwealth Association of School Administrators. “They are coerced by assistant superintendents — the final decision is the assistant superintendent’s.”

The 61 students who submitted choices will be notified of their final placement by April 14.

Two separate student walkouts have taken place over the admissions changes and subsequent underenrollment.

Under the district’s former special-admissions policy, principals had the ability to shape their incoming classes. If schools were underenrolled, they had discretion to pull students who may have narrowly missed academic or attendance criteria.

But in some cases, those policies led to underrepresentation of Black and brown students and students from economically disadvantaged families at certain magnets, like Masterman and Central. District officials said the special-admissions policies had to change systemwide to fix the equity problems.

A central-office lottery now controls admissions, with no school input allowed save for those schools who have an audition or interview, like CAPA, Girard Academic Music Program (GAMP), and Science Leadership Academy.