Phila. school budget cuts eat into college admissions
Christine Donnelly used to knock on students' doors when they stopped showing up at school. The counselor at Academy at Palumbo, a South Philadelphia magnet school, sat with seniors to make sure they were choosing colleges that were a good fit. She helped them puzzle through financial-aid forms.
Christine Donnelly used to knock on students' doors when they stopped showing up at school. The counselor at Academy at Palumbo, a South Philadelphia magnet school, sat with seniors to make sure they were choosing colleges that were a good fit. She helped them puzzle through financial-aid forms.
Philadelphia School District budget cuts made those things often impossible this last school year. And, for the first time in recent memory, 10 Palumbo students failed to graduate, Donnelly said. And fewer planned to go to four-year colleges.
In urban public schools, there are always cracks to slip through, but this year, "the cracks became craters," Donnelly said.
District-level data are not yet available, but some counselors, in interviews, said they had seen evidence of collateral damage of the worst financial crisis the school system has ever had: a drop-off in college-going rates. Students stumbling through the financial-aid process, choosing schools that might not be the best for them, disappearing from school altogether.
Superintendent William R. Hite Jr. is not surprised by the counselors' observations.
"We can do so much better for our children than our current budget allows," Hite said in a statement. "A student's potential should not be limited by our society's inability to fully fund the basic resources that are commonly found in other schools throughout the region."
Hite said the problems the counselors highlighted underscored a need for additional funding to "fully support the children of Philadelphia and specifically put back more counselors in our schools."
Like nearly every counselor in the district, Sydney Bassman lost her job at Bodine High in June 2013. Until she was placed back in the job in late November, the school had an itinerant part-time counselor.
When she returned to Bodine, she learned of a senior who abruptly stopped attending school after his father died in October. Bassman had known the student since he was a freshman and tried to reach him, but it was too late, and he never returned. Other staffers had tried to help but did not know him well or were just too busy.
"So we lost him," Bassman said. "He had exceptionally high SAT scores and would have gone to college otherwise."
She diligently sent out transcripts and put out fires when she could, Bassman said.
But she could not check in with seniors' families to make sure they understood their college financial-aid packages, or to offer workshops, as she has every other year.
"We have wonderful students at Bodine, but there are a lot more that I just have to cross my fingers for," said Bassman. "A lot of them made college choices in November without any guidance. Some just don't have a plan, and that was never the case."
Bassman chokes up when she talks about how the district's financial mess has affected students.
"They get this message that they are not important," she said. "They are working hard, and they have so little."
On paper, the number of college-bound students from Masterman, the city's top magnet school, has not changed. But the numbers bury an important story, counselor Heather Marcus said.
When Marcus - who was cut from Masterman last summer and returned in November - heard that one of her seniors was not accepted at her school of choice for a major that's offered at only a handful of colleges, she called the girl into her office.
The young woman told Marcus through tears she didn't ask for her help applying to colleges because "she knew I was really busy and didn't want to bother me."
With Marcus' return, Masterman had two counselors for 1,200 students.
"Who knows how many other students needed help but didn't reach out because they thought the counselors were too busy?" Marcus said. "The powers that be need to understand that it's about more than just looking at numbers and percentages of students attending college. It's about students - real people - and the help they need from counselors to keep their lives on track."
Two years ago, Northeast High had 10 counselors to manage the city's largest student body. This year, the school had more than 3,000 students and two full-time and two part-time counselors.
In 2012, 61 percent of Northeast's students enrolled in college. The next year, when counselors were cut to 10, 57 percent of Northeast students went to college.
Northeast counselor Andrew Dunakin said he believed that number was even lower this year.
Dunakin, who was restored to his position in mid-November, said more students than ever missed application deadlines or failed to graduate on time.
"There's always going to be kids who struggle," Dunakin said. "And now there are more of them, because there are fewer of us."
Donnelly, the Palumbo counselor, said that for the Class of 2014, 68 percent of students said they planned to go to four-year colleges.
That figure was 75 percent for the Class of 2013.
But the number that sticks with Donnelly is 10: the number of seniors who did not graduate.
"I feel very responsible for them," Donnelly said. "We've never had numbers like those."
She just didn't have time for home visits, Donnelly said: "there were just too many kids clamoring for me in school. The triaging we had to do was tenfold, and kids got lost."
215-854-5146 @newskag