Philadelphia schools all staffed up

This was a big challenge given that many poorly performing schools were required to change at least half their staff.

Philadelphia public schools have quickly avoided a potential staffing shortage, and the school district’s chief of human resources says all positions should be filled by later this week. That’s more than a week before the school year begins.

The looming teacher shortage was particularly bad at the city’s Renaissance schools, which as part of their overhaul were required to turn over at least half of their staff. While some of these schools had nearly 50 vacancies just a few months ago, there were only three teacher positions open as of Tuesday morning.

School District Chief Talent and Development Officer Estelle Matthews says district wide, there are about 100 unfilled posts.

“We’re in the process this week of filling those positions. We will definitely hit our mark this year. We didn’t have a need to use a lot of externals. Most of our positions were filled with internal teachers that were moved around through forced transfers.”

According to the school district website, West Philadelphia High School tops the list of open positions with just five vacancies.