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Local Elementary Schools Wrestle with Population Changes Classroom trailers are bound for Queen Village by Eleanor Ingersoll
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hroughout the city, the School District of Philadelphia is charged with addressing population changes that affect city schools. This includes Queen Village, where an influx of families has resulted in more kindergarteners than the 60 available spots at Meredith Elementary School at 5th and Fitzwater streets. In Pennsylvania, kindergarten attendance is not mandated, so school districts aren’t required to offer it. Thus, the School District of Philadelphia is permitted to put a cap on the kindergarten classroom size. As a result, parents of rising kindergartners started resorting to lining up outside of the school at pre-dawn hours in the dead of winter to be the first in line for the opening of January’s registration. To address the problem, three years ago the district discontinued the regular kindergarten registration process at Meredith Elementary and instituted a verification process for birth and residence in the catchment. Verified students were then eligible to be entered into a lottery; the students could then return to Meredith for first grade if they chose. The district sent students who did not receive a Meredith lottery slot to nearby Nebinger Elementary School at 6th and Carpenter streets, which the school district determined had enough space. However, Nebinger, once briefly slated
Queen Village Quarterly Crier \\ FALL 2019
for closure in 2011 due to unfilled seats, was now in the midst of a renaissance. Out-of-catchment families had begun applying for voluntary transfers and became an engaged part of the Nebinger community. They now make up 55 percent of the school’s population. The influx and exodus from year to year of out-of-catchment kindergarten students created by the district's lot-
ger, leaving families with more questions than answers. Would the transfer process, closed to students outside of Nebinger’s catchment, also apply to the Meredith families who chose to stay? And what about the younger siblings of existing Nebinger families? Would they be able to register in order to stay together at Nebinger? In June, previously registered out-of-catchment students at Nebinger
The school district also eliminated the voluntary transfer option for Nebinger, leaving families with more questions than answers. Would the transfer process, closed to students outside of Nebinger’s catchment, also apply to the Meredith families who chose to stay?
tery have created an instability issue for Nebinger administrators. Because school budgets are increased or decreased based on annual student populations, it has resulted, for instance, in the near dismissal of a newly hired teacher for a projected third kindergarten classroom. The school district also eliminated the voluntary transfer option for Nebin-
were deregistered and notified by letter, leaving parents to scramble for fall placement elsewhere. At Meredith, there is also no preference for siblings, as the lottery does not take into account where older siblings are attending school. Conflicting instructions for accepting a kindergarten spot at Nebinger left some Mer-
