As school begins, a year of challenges ahead

For Philadelphia School District principals, teachers, and students, their usual new school year mix of nervousness and exhilaration has been heightened this fall by a cash-starved financial picture.

Still, 130,000 students will show up Monday for the start of what will be a challenging 2014-15 school year.

They're being asked to live through a second year of extreme austerity that could worsen. The district faces an $81 million deficit, and unless state lawmakers pass a cigarette tax by early October, more cuts, including 1,000-plus layoffs, are possible.

"I'm excited - somewhat," Keith Arrington Sr., principal of Thurgood Marshall Elementary, said of the coming school year. "I have some concerns about how it's going to work out, but I think we can rise to the challenge."

Thurgood Marshall, a K-8 school in Olney, has some advantages. Arrington is a veteran principal who has worked at the school for five years, long enough to establish solid relationships in the community. (Many district schools are not so lucky. This year, 47 schools have new principals.)

But also, "we lived through last year," Arrington said.

The previous school year "hit us like a ton of bricks, and I was on my heels all year. We were all doing all we could just to keep kids safe," he said. Instruction suffered. Programs were cut because there was no money to pay for them.

There's no additional money this year, but Arrington said he's better prepared to make things work for the school's 725 pupils.

Thurgood Marshall students did not have recess for most of last year, for instance, because there was no staff to supervise them. This year, Arrington has figured out a way to shift people around to offer recess.

And though the school added two special-education classes this year, Arrington figured out a way to carve out space for an "accommodation room," where students who need space to calm down can have it. Last year, that space was Arrington's office, and if he had to leave to observe a teacher's class, he was forced to take the accommodation-room students with him.

Arrington tries not to play the what-if game: What if the cigarette tax doesn't pass, what if layoffs happen and class sizes swell and his budget gets cut more?

"That would be catastrophic," he said.

The realities of the financial picture are inescapable, Arrington said. Thurgood Marshall already has problems with mice and insects, and he worries now that buildings will be cleaned less frequently because of district cutbacks ordered to make ends meet.

"But we can't focus on the cutbacks," Arrington said. "We can't focus on the challenges. We just come in and do the work - the staff's commitment to education is amazing. You get tired, but the clock starts on Sept. 8."

Kathleen Radebaugh, an English teacher at Lea Elementary in West Philadelphia, agrees. She and other district teachers spent last week preparing for the new school term.

Radebaugh described herself as "very excited, very overwhelmed."

Lea has strong community partnerships, including one with the University of Pennsylvania, but unlike Thurgood Marshall, it has a new principal, Jennifer Duffy.

Radebaugh likes Duffy's leadership style, and she has impressed other teachers, as well.

Still, as in all city schools, everyone knows challenges remain.

"We are asked to do things that we might not necessarily have time or energy to do, but it's for the safety of our children," said Radebaugh, who has been teaching for seven years.

Though Lea has a full-time counselor - many schools do not - that's one counselor for almost 600 students, and Radebaugh is anxious about the high school-application process. This year, for the first time, all eighth graders must fill out applications for high school, even if they want to go to their neighborhood schools.

Lea also has a number of new teachers.

"They have phenomenal spirit and ideas, but we don't have enough support for them," said Radebaugh.

The motivation to keep pressing forward, even when circumstances are tough?

"There's so much energy in the little kids," Radebaugh said. "I don't think they realize the challenges and the changes in the district."

Chanel Smith does, though.

The 16-year-old starts 11th grade at Edison High on Monday. She is keenly aware of the things around her - bigger classes beginning last year, chaotic hallways, and classmates acting out because there weren't enough adults to keep order.

Smith loves to read, play basketball, and dance. She took auto-shop classes and may want to pursue that trade, but she's also interested in sports management. Some of her peers don't have a problem with the cutbacks, Smith said, but she sees the bigger picture.

"Without these resources, how are we going to graduate high school?" she asked. "I get very angry about it."

But junior year is important, and the things she's most focused on, Smith said, are global history, geometry, and Spanish II, some of her courses this year.

"I can't worry too much about what's around me," she said. "I'm very determined. I like school, and I'm looking forward to it."