Outsourcing subs, charter actions: live from the SRC

Happy final student day of the Philadelphia School District year. The School Reform Commission is marking this auspicious occasion with its regular monthly voting meeting, featuring a packed agenda.

Top on most people's minds is the consideration of a resolution that would pay up to $34 million for a two-year contract with Source 4 Teachers, a Cherry Hill firm, to manage substitute services. If adopted, this move would effectively outsource more than 1,000 jobs now held by union workers.

Needless to say, it's attracted enormous controversy.

The district says the move is necessary to improve a dismal "fill rate" - now, nearly 40 percent of all substitute teacher positions don't get staffed. It would also save the cash-strapped school system millions, officials said.

The Philadelphia Federation of Teachers, which represents substitute teachers, said the action is part of a manufactured crisis, that the district aimed all along ot outsource jobs and has refused to broaden the sub pool..

The SRC will also ratify charters for new schools it previously approved and handle some Renaissance charter renewals.

It's expected to vote to close Kensington Urban Education Academy High School, but not this year, as planned - bowing to community pressure, the superintendent is now recommending merging the school with Kensington Health Sciences in 2016.

And there's the usual end-of-the-school-year stuff: awarding contracts, adopting a 2015-16 SRC calendar, etc. I'm sure there'll be the usual fireworks, and I invite you to follow along here, or on Twitter.