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The school selection process is promotes systematic racism through criteria-based schools. The new “affirmative action” plan pretends to want to include kids from low-income zip codes, but ultimately teachers, staff, and parents complain about them when they get there and they are set up for failure from the beginning. One of my 8th graders got accepted to Girls High, was kicked out within 4 months and sent to a disciplinary school. Was told her she was a threat and didn’t belong. Smart kid, lots of potential, lacks support at home and needs people at school supporting her. Told me she hated Girls High because she was treated like a failure from the start when she didn’t have the time or resources to do homework and no teachers took interest in helping her, so she acted out (she was NOT like this in 8th grade either). Thrived at Camelot; honor roll student there. This tells me it’s not the kids, it’s the system and until these schools are actually willing to welcome and accommodate the low-income kids, the problem will continue. Philadelphia is known as one of the most segregated cities in the U.S. The school system isn’t helping either. Better yet get rid of special admission schools if they can’t accommodate all kids in an equitable way. So what would I change? Make all kids feel welcome, not just the ones who fit the mold.

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FROM A COLLEAGUE: How do the auditions for certain schools work with the lottery? I know a student who auditioned for creative writing at CAPA and didn't qualify for the lottery, and I know a student who skipped the audition but was selected for CAPA in the lottery. How did this happen?

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FROM A COLLEAGUE: Our counselor is amazing and created a spreadsheet of who qualified for which schools and their status.

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FROM A COLLEAGUE: I use the school district website.

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FROM A COLLEAGUE: I've been teaching for 20 years, and still don't fully understand how the LeGare process really works.

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FROM A COLLEAGUE: Start communication for parents earlier (6th-7th grade). Often by 8th grade grades, test scores and attendance from 7th have already knocked kids out of the criteria.

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FROM A COLLEAGUE: I think it should be ranked. I think LeGare should be more transparent. I think applicants from neighborhood public schools should have a slight benefit, kind of like how certain zipcodes were supposed to be weighted.

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FROM A COLLEAGUE:
4 - I support my 8th grade special ed students and their families with selection.

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FROM A COLLEAGUE: how were the 12 schools that are getting cuts restored picked? (Though so far none of that money has materialized)

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FROM A COLLEAGUE: why are they unwilling to let schools adjust their criteria in order to fill enrollment?

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FROM A COLLEAGUE: Transparency is important too - our school has 110 enrolled for freshman year but the district is saying only 60 will come so that's what our budget is based on

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FROM A COLLEAGUE: this process should not be limited to criteria based schools and should include any school (citywide) that has open seats

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FROM A COLLEAGUE: how will schools and families get notified about reopening the enrollment process to fill those 500 some spots, and to make sure this won’t happen in the future?

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FROM A COLLEAGUE: How did they arrive at the projected enrollment

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FROM A COLLEAGUE: The larger underlying issue which this conversation and all related high school enrollment talk should surface is DISTRICTWIDE ENROLLMENT. Why have we lost 60k students in 15 years? What are we doing about THAT? In other districts board/superintendent goals exist around enrollment. There are district-level recruitment plans. We can’t just watch kids and $$ leave the district and be surprised when they start calling for closing more schools….

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FROM A COLLEAGUE: prepare and present comparative data (across all citywide/criteria-based schools and going back 5 years). I think they need to look at all the schools impacted by the lottery and use that information to decide about restoring positions in the immediate and shaping a better process going forward.

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FROM A COLLEAGUE: prepare and present comparative data (across all citywide/criteria-based schools and going back 5 years). I think they need to look at all the schools impacted by the lottery and use that information to decide about restoring positions in the immediate and shaping a better process going forward.

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FROM A COLLEAGUE: where is the data that shows this ill-conceived version of a lottery is equitable to anyone? (I'm not anti a well planned and well executed lottery for schools, I am anti this horribly designed system that seems to hurt literally all stakeholders)

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FROM A COLLEAGUE: Why can't we use the money we spend on consulting firms to have a company that does lotteries for med schools (in which both the students and the schools rank and seek a match) run the lottery? (This would actually be money well spent as opposed to how they currently spend money. I believe a student presented this idea to the board and was praised for the presentation but then nothing came of it).

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FROM A COLLEAGUE: Why don't they (after making student ranking a thing) limit the number of schools a student can be accepted to (like, if the kid gets the top choice, they are pulled from the lists of their other choices thus shifting all acceptances up)?

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FROM A COLLEAGUE: Why don't you allow students to rank their choices? (Which is something many lotteries are able to do, would limit waitlist movement, and would lead to more accurate projected enrollments).

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FROM A COLLEAGUE: what’s happening to the neighborhood schools that are already overcrowded if students who traditionally would have attended a special admit school are now sent to the neighborhood school? We are bursting at the seams.

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FROM A COLLEAGUE: I teach 8th grade. My students last year did not have a full time teacher for math and science. I have some highly motivated kids whose PSSA scores are terrible given the year they had. If there were still interviews I have every confidence that a few of my kids would have been accepted not rejected from all the schools or waitlisted. I also have a child with an IEP who desperately needs a tech school. So far he is waitlisted. He will drop out if he isn’t at a tech school. These types of cases can’t be considered with the one size fits all. They should have just worked with the non diverse schools and helped them be more equitable. It is the second year in a row as an 8th grade teacher I have watched phenomenal students be rejected from all schools. Many of them are going charter or cyber due to this.

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Another teacher suggested having time during the last two weeks of school year (in June) dedicated to 7th grade info and prepping for school selection. 

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Another teacher suggested having time during the last two weeks of school year (in June) dedicated to 7th grade info and prepping for school selection. 

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Another teacher suggested having time during the last two weeks of school year (in June) dedicated to 7th grade info and prepping for school selection. 

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Another teacher suggested having time during the last two weeks of school year (in June) dedicated to 7th grade info and prepping for school selection. 

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Since freshmen classes are under enrolled, this creates an enrollment issue for the next 4 years if nothing in the process is changed.  What are your thoughts around budgeting for this inevitability?  In most schools with Arts and CTE programs, each program is led by 1 teacher.  The loss of that one teacher is more than just a loss of an instructor for the school, it is the loss of the entire program at the school.  How is the district preparing to mitigate that in schools so that students who are currently in those programs do not just lose a teacher, but also lose the program in which they are enrolled?

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For schools that are being "held harmless" due to under enrollment, how will leveling affect the positions saved at those schools in the fall?

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Make all high schools safe and have excellent programs, so families don't choose magnet schools for the sole reason of keeping their kids safe. When this happens, students become overwhelmed by demands of curriculum and get sucked into a cycle of failure.

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4
for 4 years I was on the committee reviewing applications

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Why Bodine is losing 5 teachers and we don't have an assistant principal? We have needed more support since former Gov Corbett cut many staff and we were never brought whole. Now you're cutting us again. Is your goal to shut us down?
Bodine teaches a college prep curriculum why do we have freshmen who are not prepared or able to do the college prep work? The behaviors are unlike any we saw before and you did not give us the support staff we need.
Our school gives students who live below the poverty line a chance to go to college - so many get scholarships because of our college prep curriculum. We had equity - now we don't. Our school has less Black students than before this change.

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What are the concerns with giving principals the ability to select students who are a good fit despite how they look on paper? How can we marry equity with this process?

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What’s happening with the staff cuts maxing out to 2?

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How will schools and families get notified about reopening the enrollment process?

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What data was used?

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While the system was broken at only a few schools, the fix has now broken the system at dozens and student who would have otherwise had the chance to go to the high school of their dreams are left without that choice.  How is that equity.  It seems more like equality to me.  Ask the program leaders and principals how to fix the system before putting in more fixes.

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While the system was broken at only a few schools, the fix has now broken the system at dozens and student who would have otherwise had the chance to go to the high school of their dreams are left without that choice.  How is that equity.  It seems more like equality to me.  Ask the program leaders and principals how to fix the system before putting in more fixes.

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Can middle-high schools retain their 8th graders who meet requirements? Why lottery at both 7th and 8th grade?

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High school teams involved in the process should have complete access to applicant info.  They need to be able to sort through the data AND meet the applicants to make the best decisions for the school AND the students.

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High school teams involved in the process should have complete access to applicant info.  They need to be able to sort through the data AND meet the applicants to make the best decisions for the school AND the students.

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School counselors are already stretched thin. District staff should be supporting on-site informational sessions for families to demystify the process and running recorded webinars for families during reasonable hours (not the middle of the day or morning).

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Ranked choice?

Limit acceptances? Some students getting lotteried into 5 schools and some into none feels like a poorly designed system.

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What are you going to do to ensure that the kids coming from under-performing schools are not just an affirmative action statistic and are actually being supported? Some kids are being accepted only to get a disciplinary transfer and then get sent back to their neighborhood schools. Students report there is not enough support for kids who have home issues or other things that prevent them from succeeding academically at special admissions schools.

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If a student went to middle school at the school, there should be a simple process for vetting their continuation at the school even a computer says they don't meet the criteria.

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Understand the different types of schools, what the admissions process is, and how to navigate it to students' advantage

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Help students and families understand the process once they receive notice of what schools they are selected for and what the process is if they aren't selected at all or are put on a waitlist.

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Every 8th grader should be given the proper education in k-8 so it isn't a matter of IF they meet the criteria, rather does the child feel they BELONG to the programs and culture of the high school to which thy are applying.  Do they feel excited to be at that school?  

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Every 8th grader should be given the proper education in k-8 so it isn't a matter of IF they meet the criteria, rather does the child feel they BELONG to the programs and culture of the high school to which thy are applying.  Do they feel excited to be at that school?  

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I would like the committee to address whether or not schools can form teams to help students to apply instead of leaving it all on the counselors as it is a huge responsibility

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Schools shouldn't be able to require specific courses as a requirement when they know that it is not offered at all potential feeder schools.

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Email

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Have discussions with kids starting in 7th grade about possible interests in careers to help them start thinking about the right high school program for them

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Trust the people you hired in the schools to make decisions about students who are right for the schools.  Test scores do not tell the whole story about a child.

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Trust the people you hired in the schools to make decisions about students who are right for the schools.  Test scores do not tell the whole story about a child.

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5.  I have managed school selection at my school for 9 years

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5.  I have managed school selection at my school for 9 years

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I provide families and students with honest answers about the school selection process. Our counselor and other teachers are also involved.

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The most useful tool to support students and families during this process are the school staff and counselors or teachers supporting them.

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School teams need to know what students and families need to do early on to be prepared for the application process.

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I still have a parent who can't access the parent portal despite numerous phone calls and emails for months. As a school, our hands are tied to help her. The current process assumes a certain level of Digital Literacy and there doesn't seem to be enough support for portal access.

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Prepare magnet schools to not only accept kids from certain zip codes, but also have the supports needed to accommodate them so they can be successful.

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Wider ability for humanizing the process

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Wider ability for humanizing the process

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Allow principals to select students, not a set of numbers that pass an algorithmic test.

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I would want the students, families and schools know early on in their school career what the criterion would be for each school so they can truly be prepared when it’s time to apply.

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CTE schools need interviews, at a minimum, to determine if students might be looking for programs a school does not offer.

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Really redefine and refine the school selection process so that it’s equitable but the standards for admission remain high.

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There should be caps on enrollment for all schools so that there is equity around available seats for students at all schools involved in the selection process.

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PSSAs are not an accurate measure of our kids' potential and the score requirements eliminates a lot of great kids who were not fortunate enough to attend a high-performing school

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I have conducted admission interviews in the past for our CTE school. This year, we had none.

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I was the graduate support director for a middle school and I helped students apply to high school so I would say a 5