What You Need to Know About Public Elementary Schools in Philly

There are tons of great public elementary schools in the city of Philadelphia, and it’s pretty likely that you can get your kid into one of them.

No, really. It's true.

For decades, public schools in Philadelphia have had a terrible reputation. Sometimes it seems like the only families who send their kids to neighborhood catchment schools are the ones who feel they have no other choice.

But that’s starting to change. Middle-class families who could find a way to pay for private school, who could move out of the city if they wanted to, are increasingly choosing city public schools.

Catherine Collins, whose children go to a public school in Mt. Airy, moderates the Mt Airy Parents Network, an online community of about 600 families in and around Northwest Philadelphia.

“School discussions are a huge part of what we do,” she said.

Collins has seen a dramatic increase in the number of families interested in public schools over the past few years. Each year, Collins leads a private discussion group for parents who are looking at public schools. In years past, there have been about twenty people in the group, but in the fall of 2010 she had to start turning people away after the group swelled to sixty participants.

There are a lot of good reasons to choose a neighborhood catchment school (a later article will deal with charter schools, which are publicly funded but are operated by individual charter boards, not by the School District of Philadelphia.) The financial benefits of public schools are obvious. Many families find it easier to pay for extras like music lessons or a stay-at-home parent if they’re not paying private school tuition.

The other things public school offers are less tangible. If the arts are under-funded at your child’s school, you can make up for it at home. But it’s very difficult to expose your child to families who come from a dramatically different cultural or economic background from your own. Public school is good training for adulthood, when all kinds of situations will require your children to interact with people who are very different from them. Another benefit of public schools is that their teachers often have better pay and benefits than private or charter school teachers, which reduces teacher turnover.

The School District website shows test scores for each school, but there’s a lot of debate about whether the Pennsylvania System of School Assessment (PSSA) tests are an accurate measure of school effectiveness.

The District’s website also has plenty of data about enrollment. You can see the racial breakdown in a specific school, and the percentage of the student body that is economically disadvantaged (usually measured by how many students qualify for free or reduced lunch.) Jenks students are 51.7 percent economically disadvantaged, a lower number than any of the Mt. Airy public schools.

You can also see what percentage of the student body is in Special Education—either because they’ve been deemed mentally gifted, or because they’ve been identified as having learning disabilities of some kind. 8.8 percent of the students at Jenks are in the Mentally Gifted (MG) program, slightly more than the 8.4 percent of Houston students in the program, but less than the 14.6 percent of Henry students who are in MG.

Test scores and demographics only tell part of the story. Since you can’t have everything, I suggest you make a realistic list of what you’d like to see in your child’s school. Your wish list might include things like low teacher turnover, small class sizes, a principal who seems receptive to parent involvement, a happy atmosphere in the classroom, a functioning library, a well-stocked computer room, an attractive schoolyard with trees and fun playground equipment, and an involved parent group. You will probably be able to get most, if not all, of these things at Jenks or at another public school in Northwest Philadelphia.

Now for the mechanics. It is getting harder to get into out-of-catchment schools, even though many schools in the city are under-enrolled. The Philadelphia Public School Notebook, a nonprofit news service that publishes a website and a newspaper, reported in its February issue that 45 city schools are less than half full, and another 57 are two-thirds full. But the schools that have started to attract large numbers of middle-class families are no longer accepting as many out-of-catchment kids.

Registering your incoming kindergartener is done in the office of your neighborhood catchment school. Schools should offer tours to prospective parents, but not all of them do. If your catchment school doesn’t have a regular tour set up, push them to offer one. Public schools can and should be welcoming to prospective parents. If they’re not, you have to wonder if they’ll be happy to have you spend time at the school once your child is enrolled.

If you’re interested in an out-of-catchment school, you can try to lottery your way in via the Voluntary Transfer Form (formerly called the EH-36 form), which is available on the school district website. The form must be submitted in the fall, nearly a year before your child is due to start kindergarten. Principals also have the power to admit out-of-catchment kids if they have enough space, although some principals are more willing to do that than others. Collins urges parents to be patient and courteous with principals of out-of-catchment schools, because “any out-of-catchment principal is doing you a favor if they accommodate your child in this manner.”

Collins says The Notebook is her favorite place to get school gossip. It often addresses issues related to school privatization, budgets, and administration, and frequently runs articles in Spanish as well as English.

Len Lipkin’s blog, Philly School Search, is another great place to learn about schools. He runs a series where parents tell why they chose the schools they did. This can be fascinating reading if you’re curious about a school but don’t have any friends who send their kids there. You can also look specific schools up at GreatSchools.org.

Some kids’ needs are better accommodated in a nontraditional school environment. But chances are good that your children can get a good education at a Philadelphia public school. Your neighborhood school is a good place to start your school search.

Editor’s note: Virginia C. McGuire's son attends Houston School in Mt. Airy, and she's a member of the Philadelphia Public School Notebook and the American Federation of Teachers.