In September 2024, the School District of Philadelphia (SDP) opened a public survey for stakeholders to provide input on the Academic Calendars for 2025-26 and 2026-27. This report summarizes responses to the 16,485 survey responses received, including preferences for each calendar year and key themes that emerged from comments on open-ended questions.
The Senior Exit Survey is administered annually each spring by the Office of Research and Evaluation (ORE). In 2023-24, ORE received responses from 6,718 seniors at 78 District high schools, representing 73.4% of enrolled 12th grade students. This slide deck presents a summary of survey results.
During Phase 8 of the Facilities Planning Process, District staff held informational town halls and feedback sessions in November–December 2024. In addition to the feedback sessions, all stakeholder groups were invited to share feedback via an online School Building Survey. A summary of key results from the facilities feedback sessions, the School Building Survey, and the annual Philly School Experience Survey can be found by visiting our website linked in this post.
Students throughout Philadelphia have the opportunity to apply to attend SDP schools of their choice through an annual School Selection Process. Students across all grades may apply to all available SDP K-12 schools, but 8th graders applying for 9th grade constitute the largest group of participants. This report includes analyses of several phases of the 2023-24 School Selection Process, with a focus on 8th graders enrolled in District (non-charter) schools, and their engagement with the School Selection Process to enroll in 9th grade criteria-based schools and programs in the 2024-25 school year.
This report describes the framework that guided 2023-24 Philly School Experience Survey development, the administration of the survey, the processes of survey reliability testing and validation, and the construction of school-level scores for reports.
Pennsylvania’s Act 158 created a statewide graduation requirement for all Pennsylvania high school students. Students who were in 12th grade during the 2022-23 school year were the first graduates who needed to satisfy the Act 158 requirements. This brief summarizes completion rates of the five pathways for this group of students.
The annual Philly School Experience Survey (PSES) is one of the best tools we have for monitoring conditions in Philadelphia public schools. This deck summarizes the 2023-24 survey results for District and alternative schools, highlighting system-level trends across the six core survey topics.
As part of an ambitious vision for mathematics equity and achievement, the School District of Philadelphia (SDP) adopted Illustrative Math (IM) for the district-wide K-12 math curriculum in 2023-24. In Year 1, the Office of Research and Evaluation conducted focus groups to answer the question: What were the barriers and facilitators to implementing Illustrative Math with integrity? This slide deck summarizes the findings from these focus groups and provides recommendations for continuing to improve the implementation of Illustrative Math.
The 2022-23 school year was the second year that the School District of Philadelphia used the suite of Star Assessments as universal screeners for reading and math for students in grades K-12. This report examines the statistical relationship between Star Reading, Star Math, and student performance on the PSSAs.
As part of the Playful Learning Schoolyard Redesign Program, new spaces for learning and play were designed and constructed at Joseph Pennell School and Louis H. Farrell School. This report summarizes the impact of the Schoolyard Redesign Program on student activity and overall recess climate at the schools.