District overflowing - with empty seats
Now at 43,500, # expected to hit 61,000
Although the School District of Philadelphia may need more money, textbooks and certified teachers, it certainly does not need more capacity, according to a report commissioned by the district's governing School Reform Commission.
The report, by Athenian Properties of Philadelphia, found that there are 43,500 more seats than students attending district schools. That number is projected to grow to 61,000 in five years, Stephanie Singer, an Athenian data strategist, said during the commission's regular meeting yesterday.
Student enrollment has plummeted, primarily due to the growth of charter schools beginning in 1997 and the city's falling birth rate and population.
"Population shifts happen a lot faster than school-construction cycles," said Michael J. Masch, the district's chief business officer. "So, the ability of the school district to adapt to the kinds of population shifts that we've seen in the past 20 years is difficult even if we had limitless resources - but we didn't."
Singer said that the district has the opportunity to adjust capacity to comport with enrollment.
"That gives the SRC and the district an opportunity to spend less money on real estate and more on education," she said.
That may be easier said than done, given that the empty seats are spread across the 157,000-student district.
High schools in the district's east region are crowded, but dozens of schools elsewhere are operating with less than 50 percent of their enrollment capacity, Masch said.
"There isn't a new plan yet," he said. "What there is, is a new recognition that if not now, then certainly in the future we have more facilities than we need. Now the question is what are we going to do about that."
The report recommends that the district adopt policies to close buildings and programs, consolidate or relocate programs, convert buildings to be used for multiple purposes and change student- assignment rules.
All the recommendations will be considered, Masch said.
A draft policy stipulating what criteria to use when making "right-sizing decisions" about how to use the district's buildings based on student population is being created for schools Superintendent Arlene Ackerman. The commission will vote on it.
Ackerman said that the new policy should be ready by spring.
The basic findings of the Athenian report were given to school officials in the fall, but they asked the company to calculate how the 61,000-seat imbalance would change if a best-case scenario of certain factors were considered, such as a reduction in the dropout rate.
If the dropout rate were reduced by 50 percent, the number of vacant seats would decrease by 7,000, Singer said. Reducing class sizes by 10 percent would leave 24,000 fewer empty seats, she said.
If the number of pre-kindergarten students doubled, there would be 10,000 fewer empty seats, she said.
If these three things happened together, and private-school enrollments decreased by 11,000 pupils, that would leave a total of 9,000 empty seats, Singer said. But if enrollment trends continue in charter schools, another 8,000 seats will become vacant, leaving a total of 17,000 empty seats in five years, Singer said. *
