29, there are 270 vacancies for those positions, and the district is 97% staffed. With roughly three weeks to go until the school year begins Aug. When the district began hiring for the upcoming school year, they had to fill roughly 900 vacancies among 9,000 total positions for teachers and counselors. Watlington, who most recently worked in a North Carolina district, confessed that on a pop quiz about quintessentially Philly words - like “jawn” - he only got two right. “Sometimes it can feel like you’re drinking from a fire hose.” I join you in my new status here,” said Watlington, who took over the district in mid-June. In addition to the training sessions, the new hires heard short greetings from Superintendent Tony Watlington, Board of Education President Joyce Wilkerson, and Jerry Jordan, president of the Philadelphia Federation of Teachers. “Everyone is coming with a different background,” said Meredith Mehra, the Deputy Chief for Teaching and Learning who designs the training. For the sessions, teachers are grouped based on their years of experience, either as a novice with two years or less, or a veteran with at least three years in the classroom. We felt it’s important to get in front of new teachers to support that learning and growth, because the way we’re socialized is not to have too many discussions about race.”įor the third straight year, the district’s orientation for new hires is virtual, rather than in person. Ryan Villanueva, also from the DEI office and another presenter, said he and Beckwith aim “to support the district in becoming more antiracist and more equitable. Beckwith said the point is not to say white teachers can’t teach students of color or vice versa, but rather to make sure teachers are “mindful of the disproportionality, and always consider what that might mean that we’re missing.” Sia Beckwith, who works in the district’s DEI office and is one of the trainers in this new session, presents that demographic information (which dates to last February) and explores why it matters with the new hires. The focus is designed to help teachers forthrightly deal with a subject that is often avoided: Most of Philadelphia’s teachers are white, while most of the students are Black or Hispanic. ![]() Discussions in past years have dealt with race, but have always been voluntary. Within the past several years, the district created an Office of Diversity, Equity and Inclusion to study racism on an individual and institutional level, provide training and examine current practices. But there are also sessions on helping students deal with trauma, becoming a “culturally responsive” teacher, and on “racial equity and the history of Philadelphia.” Most of the sessions for new hires are tailored to the teacher’s specialty, such as elementary school math, high school science, special education, digital literacy, art, and music. More than 600 new teachers and counselors in Philadelphia kicked off their week-long orientation on Monday, and this year, for the first time, the issue of race is a required discussion topic. Chalkbeat Philadelphia is one of more than 20 news organizations producing Broke in Philly, a collaborative reporting project on solutions to poverty and economic mobility in the city.
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