The new Philly superintendent’s transition team report is out. Here’s what it says.

After months spent analyzing the Philadelphia School District from top to bottom, Superintendent Tony B. Watlington Sr.’s transition team presented its report to the public and school board Thursday — with 91 short- and long-term recommendations on how to fix the system.

The 100-member committee — under the leadership of Community College of Philadelphia President Donald “Guy” Generals and Andrea Custis, a former Verizon executive and president of the Philadelphia Urban League — studied academics, operations, and equity, among other issues.

Though the 114,000-student district has strengths — namely, a return to fiscal stability after a time when officials had to borrow to pay bills, and an end of the state’s takeover of the school system — the team also identified significant challenges.

Tops is academics: Student achievement is consistently low, and relatively flat on local, state and national assessments. Citywide, just 36% of district students meet state standards in reading and 22% in math. Moreover, the district “lacks a clear theory of action on how it expects to raise student achievement. When initiatives are launched, they rarely go to scale as they come from separate departments in the central office and simply layer on initiative after initiative.”

Communications is also a problem.

“We’re going to take action on the lack of transparency and a culture of respect and care,” Custis said at a news conference.

The district’s aging buildings are a key worry, too — the most recent estimate puts the pricetag for all needed building repairs at $5 billion. The average district school is over 70 years old.

Underpinning everything is the “consistent underfunding of the district due to city and state funding decisions,” the report concluded.

The 91 recommendations, 58 short-term and 33 long-term — do not immediately become district priorities; Watlington will take time reviewing them with a smaller group of staff and the board, he said, and come up with a five-year strategic plan by spring to guide the district’s long-term work.

The recommendations range from launching a citywide attendance monitoring system and developing a career ladder to help teachers and paraprofessionals advance without leaving the system, to making the district’s special-admit schools more equitable and making no-cost afterschool programming available.

“At a quick glance, they all have value, and they give us a rich set of things to think about,” Watlington said of the suggestions.

Watlington did identify areas he intended to tackle immediately: attendance, which has shown troubling trends nationwide since the start of the pandemic, dropouts, student and parent engagement.

Betty Morgan, a former national superintendent of the year who was part of a team given a $450,000 contract to help Watlington transition to Philadelphia, said the district must be strategic because now, there’s an “initiatives overload.” Watlington, in response, said the district would have to “practice strategic abandonment...we don’t want to layer more stuff on top of stuff.”

The superintendent indicated issues of equity will also be near the top of his mind.

“I heard from students who told me in some schools there are very few Advanced Placement courses, there are others that have a plethora of Advanced Placement courses,” Watlington said. Access to Algebra I and extra-curricular activities are similarly uneven.

No doubt: Watlington, who has been on the job since mid-June, will have to make “tough decisions,” Custis said, especially on buildings. “Do some of them get renovated? Do some of them close eventually?”

Watlington, a former history teacher, likened what comes next to the development of the Marshall Plan to rebuild Europe after World War II. And it will cost money, he said.

“I am not going to be bashful about asking for the resources we need to invest in the city where the Declaration of Independence was signed, and yet we have a lot of work to do to make sure that everyone realizes the promise of that document. If it costs us money, we’re going to ask for it.”

School board president Joyce Wilkerson said serious shifts were necessary.

“If we’re going to do better for our children, adults are going to have to change the way we do business,” Wilkerson said.

Watlington recently wrapped up his first 100 days by making leadership changes, naming Uri Monson, the current chief financial officer, as deputy superintendent for operations and ShaVon Savage, a former Philadelphia principal and deputy chief of the district’s office of specialized services, as deputy superintendent of academic services.

Also appointed were Alexandra Coppadge, formerly of Mastery Charter Schools, as chief of communications and customer service; Monique Braxton, a former television journalist, as deputy chief of communications and spokesperson; and Edwin Santana, a former teacher and community organizer, as director of community relations.