RT @NextGenLC: Congratulations to Workshop (PA), Hinsdale (NH), Franklin (NH), and Citizens of the World (CA & MO)! NGLC is excited to reim….

RT @newskag: The Workshop School, hailed nationally as a model of innovation and #PHLed star, is in a battle for its life, its founders say….

Long term, we need real dialogue about a new home for the Workshop, and a change to the admissions process so we don’t confront these problems every year. All of these are solvable problems, but we need the district to partner with us on solutions.

We need immediate repairs to our current facility and help with next year’s over-enrollment and special education crisis.

What we didn’t sign up for is an unending stream of structural, facilities, and policy challenges that continually undermine our work and our students' education. The status quo is both untenable and unsustainable.

Through advocacy, design, creative expression, entrepreneurship, and automotive work, we help our students shape a vision for their future and equip them with the skills and experience to pursue it. The work is both challenging and rewarding. That’s what we signed up for.

Despite all of this, our team is working super hard for our students. Just last week, we had ninth grade students speak to city council about Philadelphia’s newly created Reparations Task Force, while our 10th graders hosted a visit from renowned author MK Asante.

As the article mentions, our bathrooms are also routinely out of order. Water leaks in classrooms are common.

Then there is the building itself. Only 5 of our classrooms have windows and our HVAC system has been broken all year. Temps in classrooms these last few weeks have topped 85 degrees. Last week we had 3-4 classes meeting in our cafeteria because it was the only space with w/ AC.

A significant number of these students require autistic support even though we don’t have staff trained to provide it nor a space to serve them. Several other IEPs call for nearly full time pull-out instruction, which we cannot offer.

We have 3 9th grade classrooms that can hold at most 24 students per. As of last Friday, the district has enrolled 104 students for our 9th grade next year. Up to half of them will have IEPs.

The district has refused to change anything about the HS selection process. We have proposed solutions that would address the needs of our specific school without overhauling the system. They have been ignored. So here is what we are looking at next year:.

Large number of students with support needs + lack of space/staff to meet those needs puts massive strain on both academics and school culture. Time and attention are finite resources and it gets really hard to meet everyone's needs/differentiate.

When students' needs are not met, stuff can (and does) happen that disrupts the learning environment and makes everyone less safe. (Refraining from sharing details because I’m not going to feed into a “those kids” narrative. The kids are not the problem here.).

We have students whose IEPs call for 20-30 hours PER WEEK of pull-out support. We have nowhere to provide that service. Several of our students who are supposed to have 1:1 support do not receive it. We have repeatedly shared this information with SDP.

We have 13 classrooms which are in use all day. We do not have any space for pull-out instruction, emotional support, or meetings with students/families. Our five-person special education team shares a single office that is a converted supply closet (as most of our offices are).

Over the years we presented SDP with several options we wanted to pursue, including draft plans and program budgets. All were rejected and no alternatives were proposed.

Our current building was never meant to be a permanent home. When we opened Workshop in 2013, the plan was to find a long-term facility that would let us expand and provide us with the basic amenities available at most high schools (gym, auditorium, staff lounge, offices etc.).

Since then, two things have happened. 1) Our exceptional ed population has sharply increased. 2) Many of these students do not receive the basic supports or services indicated in their IEPs. Why? Space and staffing.

We shared several years of data indicating that students w/IEPs matriculated at nearly twice the rate of those without, and if they did not account for this we would end up overenrolled and with a very large exceptional ed population. No changes were made.