Listen to article \u2022\u00a00:00 min<\/p>\n
The Philadelphia School District is thousands of students under its enrollment projections this school year \u2014 and with an important funding deadline looming, Superintendent Tony B. Watlington Sr. is sending officials knocking on doors to drum up business.<\/p>\n
Central office staff and school workers have been asked to fast-track \u201cEnrollment Acceleration,\u201d a new, district-specific program directly engaging families that have left the Philadelphia school system, The Inquirer has learned.<\/p>\n
District staff \u2014 up to and including chiefs and assistant superintendents \u2014 are fanning out across the city, pounding the pavement to try to connect with reluctant families face-to-face. The door knocking began in the last two weeks. <\/p>\n
The effort is driven by a shrinking student body in district schools and an Oct. 1 deadline to report enrollment \u2014 which drives district funding \u2014 to the Pennsylvania Department of Education. <\/p>\n
District schools were 4,236 students under their projected enrollment of as of Sept. 17, according to internal documents obtained by The Inquirer. District-run alternative programs had 1,051 fewer students than planned.<\/p>\n
The school system had projected 116,898 in district schools by Sept. 17, and 2,757 in alternative schools. Instead, its enrollment was 112,662 in district schools and 1,706 in alternative schools.<\/p>\n
Asked to comment on the enrollment decline, officials said enrollment was up since Sept. 17, but did not provide specifics or comment further.<\/p>\n
Enrollment is down virtually everywhere in the city. <\/p>\n
Just two of 15 networks did not lose students, according to the Sept. 17 figures \u2014 Learning Network 9, a geographic network of elementary and middle schools in Kensington<\/a>, Bridesburg<\/a>, Port Richmond<\/a>, and Frankford<\/a>, and Learning Network 15, a network of magnet schools across the city.<\/p>\n Voting with their feet<\/p>\n Once the 2026-27 school year began Aug. 24, it became quickly clear that there were fewer district students in seats than expected.<\/p>\n Many factors likely play into the enrollment decline. <\/p>\n Though academics have generally been improving in the school system \u2014 Philadelphia was tops in the nation in its learning rate post-pandemic<\/a>, according to research out of Harvard and Stanford \u2014 the district still struggles, with most students unable to read (33%) or do math (25%) at grade level. <\/p>\n (Philadelphia charter schools\u2019 performance is slightly worse in reading, 31%, and slightly worse in math, 20%.)<\/p>\n Also a likely factor is the effect of the school board voting recently to close 17 schools in the next several years. Officials have said they are doing so to improve academic outcomes for all students, amid 70,000 empty seats citywide, a stock of aging buildings and decades of underfunding, and emphasized that in addition to the closings, they plan to spend billions on renovating 169 of the buildings they\u2019re keeping open \u2014 though most of that plan is unfunded.<\/p>\n There are other reasons, too: Some staff say the current political climate has fears of ICE keeping some students out of school. And cyber charter enrollment is growing, with some Philadelphia families choosing the virtual option because of safety fears for their children as the city grapples with a gun violence epidemic. <\/p>\n \u201cThe district is a hard sell for some families,\u201d said one central-office employee who was not authorized to speak about the enrollment decline. \u201cYou have a lot of families who have just unfortunately lost faith in a lot of the offerings that we have, and they\u2019re voting with their feet.\u201d<\/p>\n A full-court press<\/p>\n Since the surprise decline became apparent when school started, \u201cwe\u2019ve been working hard to close the gap,\u201d the employee said. <\/p>\n At first, schools were directed to reach out themselves via calls and emails to students they expected to enroll but who never showed up. Soon, almost-daily briefings on closing the enrollment gap began, and have continued.<\/p>\n Next, the administration moved to canvassing events, asking central office employees and school staff to volunteer to go out in pairs into neighborhoods to reach families. Canvassing also includes trips to neighborhood barbershops, laundromats, and corner stores \u201ctrying to convince students to return back to the district, rather than remain in whatever other option they decided on.\u201d<\/p>\n About 75 employees volunteered for the effort, the employee said. It is still ongoing. <\/p>\n Some schools and departments pushed back against the call to directly appeal to students, with officials they didn\u2019t feel comfortable sending staff into neighborhoods. Others are going out, the employee said.<\/p>\n The campaign is an extraordinary step, said the employee.<\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019ve never known an assistant superintendent or anyone going so far as this, being part of canvassing,\u201d said the employee source.<\/p>\n Much is at stake.<\/p>\n \u201cOur funding is based on numbers,\u201d the employee said. (Both state and federal funding are tied to enrollment.) <\/p>\n And the district has generally been shrinking for decades.<\/p>\n In 1999, just after the first charter schools opened in Pennsylvania, the district enrolled 205,199 students in its schools. By 2025, that number was 113,735. (An additional 64,469 students were enrolled in charters.)<\/p>\n The district\u2019s enrollment rose once in the last decade<\/a>: in 2024-25, jumping by 1,841 students to 117,956. Watlington said he believed the next year\u2019s drop happened because of large-scale SEPTA<\/a> bus route changes at the start of the school year.<\/p>\n \u2018Warm conversations\u2019<\/p>\n A second employee involved in the recent recruitment efforts said the call to canvass came with surprising urgency. <\/p>\n \u201cThey said, \u2018It needs to be done in the next two weeks, because our numbers have to go to the state Oct. 1,\u2019\u201d said the employee, who also asked to not be identified because they were not authorized to speak about the enrollment push.<\/p>\n The second employee was paired with another volunteer. They received a several-page handout with instructions about how to conduct the visits, and a suggested script.<\/p>\n \u201cWe\u2019re reaching out because we want to make sure your child has a clear plan for school and see how we can support you,\u201d the second employee said.<\/p>\n Canvassers were told to ask if the family planned to return their children to the district, to begin a \u201cwarm conversation\u201d and to help families with information about how to register for district schools. They were told to help address any barriers to registration.<\/p>\n Teams were told their safety is paramount, asked to not enter homes, and reminded to end a visit if either team member feels unsafe.<\/p>\n \u201cRemember,\u201d one handout said, \u201cyou are there to understand, inform, support and connect \u2014 not to convince.\u201d<\/p>\n The second employee wasn\u2019t especially enthusiastic about canvassing, but felt pressure to do so.<\/p>\n \u201cWhat can I say on somebody\u2019s doorstep to get them registered in the school district? Nothing,\u201d the employee said.<\/p>\n The first employee said they were not having success with families.<\/p>\n \u201cThe houses I\u2019ve been to haven\u2019t been very responsive,\u201d the employee said. \u201cBut I\u2019ve been having very cool conversations with neighbors.\u201d<\/p>\n Many families aren\u2019t home or don\u2019t answer the door, and the employee doesn\u2019t blame them. They could be mistrustful of authorities or people they don\u2019t know or worry about their safety.<\/p>\n Four people involved in the \u201ccome-back-to-the-district\u201d effort said they were skeptical it would help the school system reach its projections.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s going to yield something, but it\u2019s not going to yield enough to cover up the fact that we\u2019re several thousand away from meeting our projection of 116,000,\u201d the employee said. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Listen to article \u2022\u00a00:00 min The Philadelphia School District is thousands of students under its enrollment projections this…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":296147,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[122444,69,71,70],"class_list":["post-296146","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-philadelphia","tag-handle-with-care-program-philadelphia-schools-gun-violence","tag-philadelphia","tag-philadelphia-headlines","tag-philadelphia-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/296146","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=296146"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/296146\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/296147"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=296146"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=296146"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=296146"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}