Philadelphia School District Seeks Ideas For Reinventing Existing Schools, Creating New Ones
By Mike DeNardo
PHILADELPHIA (CBS) -- Do you have an idea how to revamp a Philadelphia school -- or maybe even create a new one? If so, the school district wants to hear from you.
The school district is inviting educators and communities to submit ideas to turn around the academics at individual schools, or to create entirely new high schools. It's the second round of the Call for Quality initiative.
Last year, Carnell, Chester Arthur and Jenks Elementary and Tilden Middle School were selected. They're expected to open under their new systems in the fall. Even though those schools haven't established a track record yet, deputy superintendent Paul Kihn says the district is confident enough not to wait.
"We don't want to have a set of initiatives where we start something even if it's relatively small and then wait three or four years to determine if it works," he says, "and then in the meantime we just tread water."
Kihn says the number of schools selected depends on the number of quality applications, but he expects it will be more than the four last year.
"This is not something we're doing to schools," he says. "This is something we're inviting schools to participate in. And so it'll just be determined by the number of good, quality applications that we get."
The transformed district-run schools would open in the fall of 2016.