THE SCHOOL DISTRICT OF PHILADELPHIA

OFFICE OF THE SUPERINTENDENT

440 NORTH BROAD STREET, SUITE 301

PHILADELPHIA, PENNSYLVANIA 19130

WILLIAM R. HITE, JR., Ed.D.

SUPERINTENDENT

TELEPHONE (215) 400-4100

FAX (215) 400-4104

August 17, 2015

VIA EMAIL AND U.S. MAIL

Honorable Darrell L. Clarke
President, City Council of Philadelphia
Room 494, City Hall
Philadelphia, PA 19107

Dear Council President Clarke:

I am writing in response to your letter of August 6, 2015, which we received last week. I
appreciate your continued attention to and focus on the School District of Philadelphia, and
welcome the opportunity to further describe our work in service of students and schools.

This response is organized into three sections: (1) an overview of the restructuring we
pursued this summer to provide increased support to schools; (2) information about our filling
critical vacancies, including those referenced in the Daily News article your letter cites; and (3) a
review of our FY16 budget testimony and plan for investment.

1. Restructuring to better support schools

We recognize that, right now, childrens access to opportunity is based far too much on
where they live; that geography too often is destiny. Equity, which we define as all children
having a great school close to where they live, is a pillar of our Action Plan. We know that for us
to achieve our equity mission i.e., to have great schools in every neighborhood we need to
provide consistent, close, and responsive support to every school in every neighborhood.

Providing this support requires us to adapt and modify our structure and our ways of
operating. For example, we are expanding the number and types of Learning Networks (our
groupings of schools overseen by Assistant Superintendents, who are principal supervisors) for
the 2015-16 school year. The purpose of the Learning Network expansion is to increase our
support to principals and schools, and to ensure more focused, frequent, and effective
collaboration among similar schools.

Honorable Darrell L. Clarke

August 17, 2015

Page 2

Under our old structure, one Assistant Superintendent was supporting dozens of schools
with a wide range of structures, from alternative education to turnaround to special admission to
neighborhood catchment. Under our new structure, this same Assistant Superintendent will be
able to focus his or her support on a more targeted group of neighborhood schools.

Third-party research previously shared with City Council the ERS report titled SDP
Expenditure Trends, May 2015 that was enclosed with my June 1, 2015 letter to you
highlighted the need for this restructuring. On slide 8 (a copy of which is enclosed), ERS noted
that the average case load for an Assistant Superintendent at the School District of
Philadelphia (28.3 schools) was almost 10 schools higher than the median case load for our peer
school districts.

The driving purpose of our expanding the number and types of Learning Networks
which was built into our Fiscal Year 2015-16 (FY16) baseline budget is to increase our support
to principals and schools, and to ensure more focused, frequent, and effective collaboration
among similar schools. We want to ensure that each school can get the support it needs to be a
great school. Specifics about each Learning Network (including goal, size, and leader) are
included in the attached document.

I also made several changes within my leadership team to better align skills with areas of
need, and to increase the participation of school-facing team members in decision-making and
senior leadership. A listing of all of these changes is also included in the attached document.

2. Filling critical vacancies

We know that talent is the key to making our schools great. One of our Action Plan
priorities is to make sure we have the right roles and team members to support students and
schools.

In an organization of the School Districts size, with over 17,000 full-time positions,
vacancies arise and need to be filled on an ongoing basis. Over the summer, we are filling over
800 school-based vacancies including teachers, principals, and other school-based staff and
have also filled some key central office vacancies.1 (We continue to work to fill remaining
school-based and central office vacancies.)

The central office vacancies we filled included the specific positions you inquired about:
two Assistant Superintendent positions; the Deputy Chief of Academic Enrichment; the
Executive Director of the Charter Schools Office; a Director of Advocacy and External
Engagement; and an Executive Director of Operations.

1 Like

all new hires, the hires made this summer will be voted on by the School Reform Commission, which each
month considers and votes on a public resolution that includes new hires and terminations.

Honorable Darrell L. Clarke

August 17, 2015

Page 3

As indicated in the enclosed job descriptions for these positions, each role provides
essential support for students, schools, and/or our overall organizational mission. Some of the
roles namely, the Assistant Superintendent positions and the Executive Director of the Charter
Schools Office involve direct supervision of schools, including District-run, contractoroperated, or charter-run schools. The Deputy Chief for Academic Enrichment is charged with
leading our efforts to provide academic enrichment and extracurricular opportunities for
students, and his portfolio includes gifted education, world languages, music, art, theater, dance,
health and physical education, and athletics. The Director of Advocacy and External Engagement
helps to lead our local and state government relations activity, strategic advocacy, and
community and stakeholder engagement. The Executive Director of Operations has oversight for
operations, maintenance, alterations, and improvements of the School Districts hundreds of
facilities.

These were critical vacancies to fill, and I am confident that each of these colleagues will
have a positive impact on our support for schools and the learning opportunities we provide for
students. We would welcome the opportunity to introduce you and other City Council members
to these new colleagues.

I wanted to bring two more staffing points to your attention. First, as is standard practice
for employers, when the School District hires a current employee into a new position, the
employee may see an increase in compensation due to the new position having increased
responsibilities and/or an additional workload (and, conversely, a reduction in compensation if
hired into a position with fewer responsibilities). For example, salaries would increase for a
building engineer appointed to be a supervisor; a principal appointed to be an Assistant
Superintendent; and a teacher or an Observation Feedback Coach appointed to be a Curriculum
Specialist.

We have made several salary changes during the past few months, almost all of which
were the result of current employees moving to new positions with significantly increased
responsibilities and workload demands that pay a higher salary. Most of the increases were offset
by personnel cost reductions, such as the elimination of vacant positions, attrition of employees,
etc., or other offsetting cost reductions. Even with these changes, we continue to operate at an
extremely low administrative cost. Only approximately 3% of our operating budget goes to
administrative costs, which is significantly lower both than our peer school districts and than
prior School District spending levels.

Second, under rare and exceptional circumstances, we occasionally make one-time
payments to employees. This could happen, for example, when an employee takes on significant
additional responsibilities during a discrete period of time.

Last year, when one of our Learning Networks had a vacant Assistant Superintendent
position for the entire year, two of our Assistant Superintendents stepped up and took on an extra
load, and we compensated them for the additional work. To ensure that the schools in the

Honorable Darrell L. Clarke

August 17, 2015

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Learning Network with the vacancy received support and attention, these two Assistant
Superintendents each took on supervision of half of the schools in the Learning Network with the
vacancy, in addition to covering their own Learning Networks.

This was an extraordinary amount of work: the two Assistant Superintendents were
directly responsible for 43 and 44 schools, respectively, and they received additional one-time
compensation of $10,000 each in recognition of their significantly expanded duties. I should note
that the salary for an Assistant Superintendent is $145,000; by not filling the role over the course
of the year and instead making $20,000 in one-time payments, our costs were $125,000 less than
they would have been had we filled the role.

3. Review of our FY16 budget testimony and plan for investment

Finally, I wanted to review my F16 budget testimony to City Council and the School
Districts plan for investing additional resources in service of student learning.

As first set forth in the materials we provided to City Council in advance of our budget
hearing (enclosed is the deck from my briefing with you and your staff), the approximately
$264M in additional funding we requested from the state and the city for FY16 was intended to
close our projected shortfall (then estimated at approximately $84.7M) and support $180M in
new investments.

As I testified in City Council, and also outlined in the pre-hearing briefings, the vast
majority of the $180M in new investments (approximately 74%) would be used for school-based
allocations, implementing school-specific plans developed by principals and their teams; 15%
would support focused investments in our turn-around schools and schools serving at-risk
students; 8% would be used for school facility improvements; and 3% would be used for staff
development.

We remain very thankful for the $70M in additional funding approved by City Council
(including the $25M that is the subject of the pending transfer ordinance). That funding enabled
us to address our structural budget gap, preserve our current level of services (including filling
the vacancies noted above), and avoid having to make any further reductions. Without a state
budget having been approved, we do no not yet know what resources will be available for
investment in our schools, including by increasing staffing levels and program offerings at
schools.

We remain optimistic that the Governor and legislature will come to agreement on a state
budget that reflects the high priority citizens across Pennsylvania place on public education and
their schools. We have been clear with all parties about our support for a state budget that
provide significant additional education funding to Philadelphia and to school districts across
Pennsylvania, and appreciate your advocacy on this topic.

Honorable Darrell L. Clarke

August 17, 2015

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Please let me know if we can provide additional information and thank you for your
ongoing support of our students and schools.

Sincerely,

William R. Hite, Jr., Ed.D.
Enclosures