Philadelphia School District Superintendent Dr. Tony Watlington sits down exclusively with CBS3 ahead of 2022-23 school year
PHILADELPHIA (CBS) -- Dr. Tony Watlington is about to lead the School District of Philadelphia into a new school year, welcoming more than 124,000 students next week. The new superintendent is coming off a summer-long listening and learning tour, where he's crisscrossed the city meeting with parents, students, and community members.
"Things have been going very well, very busy," Dr. Watlington said. "We are still in the thick of our listening and learning tour. To date, we've completed over 60 of the sessions, our goal is to get to 80-plus. People are being very frank and candid in telling me what they think the district does well."
CBS3 sat down with Dr. Watlington for an exclusive one-on-one interview about what this new school year will hold. He pledges more transparency and dedication to improving student achievement.
He says that starts with teacher recruitment.
"We've been heavily recruiting over the past year. At present we're about 97.4% staffed. Teachers and counselors, I want to assure parents that their child will have a teacher in that classroom," Dr. Watlington said.
Safety has also become a number one priority in and around school zones, with multiple shooting scenes happening near many district schools last year.
"In the short term, we're gonna continue the safe patrol zones around schools with law enforcement, we're also gonna continue to partner with community organizations to help patrol areas outside of the school," Dr. Watlington said.
Dr. Watlington says the school district will also have a laser focus this year on counseling students transitioning back into the classroom with an ongoing pandemic still hovering.
"I can tell you scores of young people have told me this summer that they just don't feel the same way about coming to school. They feel disconnected from each other. We wanna make sure schools are safe not just physically and emotionally so we want to pay attention to the impact the pandemic has had on our young people," Dr. Watlington said.