One hundred Phila. teachers back to vacation with slumping summer school enrollment

Summer School classes have been going on for just a week in Philadelphia and staff is being trimmed to match enrollment.

About 100 summer school teachers are going to be laid off. District spokesperson Shana Kemp says about 20 percent of the students expected to come didn’t.

“We estimated about 30,000 and I think at the peak so far we had just under 24,000 attend and those numbers will fluctuate as we go through the next several days of the program,” said Kemp.

Kemp says there are many explanations for the attendance disparity.

“They could have an emergency in a family that means they could go out of town,” said Kemp.  “Because it’s not mandatory it’s easier for parents or students to say because we have this situation we aren’t going to send you in today or what have you so it just depends from one day to the next.”

Some teachers are being moved to schools where enrollment exceeds expectations.