This week, teachers and students of the School District of Philadelphia are all wondering, "what is the use of school right now?" According to the publicly available District calendar all grades were due on Wednesday, June 12; students are keenly aware of this fact. Therefore - as all teachers know - it is impossible to complete any kind of instruction on the remaining days of school. That means from June 13-21 (7 "instructional" days), teachers are not teaching, students are not learning, and the potential for harm increases dramatically. There are few - if any - punishments that will stick (calling for "detention" just means teachers have to stay after school for no pay and students won't show up because there are no lasting consequences).
So what this translates to is a very unnecessary experience for all involved. Wouldn't it have made more sense to do something different with this time? Even if the calendar could not have been changed, what if we simply closed things down early and cited the budget gap as the reason? Let's do the math and see how much savings could be realized.
So what this translates to is a very unnecessary experience for all involved. Wouldn't it have made more sense to do something different with this time? Even if the calendar could not have been changed, what if we simply closed things down early and cited the budget gap as the reason? Let's do the math and see how much savings could be realized.
We'll start with the overall District budget as shown from this powerpoint presentation.
As you can see, roughly $1.3 billion goes towards school operating expenses. If we include expenses over all 52 weeks of the year, that is $25 million each school week (only 5 days) or about $5 million per day. If we scale up to 7 days of school, that means:
We are wasting $35 million to keep school open. That is more than 10% of the budget gap for next year.
Even if we are more conservative and say that only 80% of the $1.3 billion goes toward operating expenses, that is still $28 million - a hefty chunk of change.
Perhaps the District leadership should plan further ahead and figure out how they want to treat schools in the future. Perhaps this week is practice for when schools in Philadelphia are simply warehouses to babysit kids instead of using actual pedagogy.
As you can see, roughly $1.3 billion goes towards school operating expenses. If we include expenses over all 52 weeks of the year, that is $25 million each school week (only 5 days) or about $5 million per day. If we scale up to 7 days of school, that means:
We are wasting $35 million to keep school open. That is more than 10% of the budget gap for next year.
Even if we are more conservative and say that only 80% of the $1.3 billion goes toward operating expenses, that is still $28 million - a hefty chunk of change.
Perhaps the District leadership should plan further ahead and figure out how they want to treat schools in the future. Perhaps this week is practice for when schools in Philadelphia are simply warehouses to babysit kids instead of using actual pedagogy.
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