‘The most incredible profession on the planet’: 500-plus new Philly educators kick off their school year

The school year started Wednesday for the 500-plus new Philadelphia School District teachers and counselors who will welcome 113,000 students back to school on Aug. 24.

Inside the cavernous gymnasium at School of the Future in Parkside, Superintendent Tony B. Watlington Sr. pumped up the 575 new hires, telling them he was honored they chose Philadelphia.

“We’re working hard in this school district to be the fastest-improving large urban district in the entire United States of America,” Watlington said.

District officials said that they have 94% of teacher jobs filled system-wide, with just under three weeks before the beginning of the school year. The district has 100% of principal jobs filled.

The lowest “fill rate” for school-based jobs across the system is 77%, for building engineers, followed by special education assistants, at 79%.

This has been a chaotic hiring season for the district, with projected budget cuts forcing staff reductions in the spring, then a scramble to restore hundreds of school-based jobs after Mayor Cherelle L. Parker promised millions to stave off the cuts.

Some of those 340 teachers, counselors and other school-based workers who were cut have been restored to the positions they were initially directed to leave; others have taken new jobs in or outside the system, or are “over-appointments” who do not yet have permanent Philadelphia assignments.

Debora Carrera told the new teachers she wouldn’t have risen to become Mayor Cherelle L. Parker’s chief education officer if not for people like them.

Carrera, the daughter of parents who didn’t finish elementary school, grew up as one of six kids in a single-parent family. Sometimes she was hungry. Sometimes, she wasn’t able to bathe.

But “there were teachers who didn’t use those things as obstacles or barriers,” Carrera said. “But you know what they saw? They saw talent, and they saw potential in me.”

Research shows that the top factor influencing a child’s academic progress is having a well-supported, stable teacher. And the first few years of educators’ careers are crucial: nearly half of all teachers leave the profession within the first five years.

Don’t give up, Carrera said.

“Being a teacher is the most amazing incredible profession on the planet - don’t let anyone ever tell you differently,” she said. “Are you going to feel like you’re great every day? No? But guess what, stick with it.”

After the pep talk, Kwaku Ansah was charged up.

Ansah, who will teach students with disabilities at Philadelphia Military Academy, a small district high school in North Philadelphia, has a decade of teaching in his native Ghana under his belt. He knows there will be tough days in Philly classrooms, Ansah said.

“But,” Ansah said, “I’m ready.”