Announcing the Fiscal Year 2026 Budget Priorities Survey! Learn more and participate HERE
The District-Wide Survey (DWS) program measures five key topics related to school improvement—climate, instruction, leadership, professional capacity, and parent/guardian-community ties, while allowing respondents to share their perspectives and provide feedback about how they experience and perceive their schools. This research brief answers two questions about the representativeness, or external validity, of the teacher, principal/assistant principal, and support staff responses from the 2020-21 school year.
In summer 2021, the School District of Philadelphia (SDP) offered a series of virtual and in person summer programs for students who had completed grades PreK-12. In response to students experiencing digital and hybrid learning from March 2020 – June 2021, summer 2021 programming offerings were expanded from previous summers. Nearly 16,000 students enrolled in summer programming, over 12,000 students attended a program for at least one day, and nearly 6,000 students attended at least one program for 75% or more of days.
The School District of Philadelphia implemented a universal K-12 interim assessments program beginning in the 2020-21 school year. All schools across the District administered aimswebPlus for grades K-5 and Star for grades 6-12; reading and math tests were administered for both assessments. The overall goals of this analysis were: (1) to examine whether there are patterns of nonparticipation during the spring assessment window that can provide additional information when interpreting 2020-21 performance and (2) to discover whether there are ways to support increased participation in the 2021-22 testing windows.
District-level report on findings from a 2020 survey of exiting seniors about whether they plan to obtain additional education, secure employment, or pursue other activities after graduation.
This report provides a descriptive summary of the nine Specialized Service support programs provided to 20,787 students with one or more Individualized Education Plan (IEP) classifications in the School District of Philadelphia during the 2019-20 school year.
The District-Wide Survey (DWS) program measures five key topics related to school improvement—climate, instruction, leadership, professional capacity, and parent/guardian-community ties, while allowing respondents to share their perspectives and provide feedback about how they experience and perceive their schools. This research brief answers two questions about the representativeness, or external validity, of the student and parent/guardian DWS responses from 2020-21.
This report describes the framework that guided survey development, the administration of the surveys, the processes of survey reliability testing and validation, and the construction of school-level scores for reports. This version reflects new updates from the 2020-21 DWS administration.
The Pennsylvania Department of Education requires each district to survey exiting seniors about their intentions after high school—specifically, whether students plan to obtain additional education, secure employment, or pursue other activities. This graduate follow-up survey asked Career and Technical Education (CTE) students from the class of 2020 about their experiences after graduation.
Each fall, SDP students can apply to attend any school in the District. Although the school selection process (SSP) is open to all grades, 8th-grade students are particularly encouraged to participate by applying to up to five high schools. Fourth-graders are also likely to consider special admission schools that serve 5th grade. We gathered community input on alternative ways of matching students with good-fit schools by considering different admission requirements through a survey that was open May 17-June 11, 2021. A total of 5,849 people responded to the survey, and the responses are summarized in this slide deck.