Philadelphia School Partnership

MaST II, the second campus of MaST Schools Network, opened in 2016 and has quickly become one of the city’s highest achieving, diverse and in-demand schools—more than 6,800 children applied to the school last year. It ranked in the top 10% of elementary schools based on academic achievement in Philadelphia and in the top 15% for decreasing the achievement gap between Black and White Students in the state of Pennsylvania. After three years of achieving academic success, the school was approved to grow by 650 seats to 1,900. The $1.2M PSP grant—the third grant PSP has made to MaST II—will support the school as it creates capacity for the additional seats.

♦ During the first week of hybrid learning—combination of in-classroom and virtual—Leo and Noelle from Ms. King’s 1st-grade class at MaST III participated in various “Getting to Know You” activities, which included completing an “All About Me” banner, and designing a cut-out of themselves. MaST’s third science and technology focused school in Philadelphia pulls at least 50 percent of its students via lottery from four high-need zip codes. PSP provided a startup grant to MaST III to help them open in the fall of 2019. (Photo: Courtesy of MaST.)

Located in North Philadelphia, Little Flower is a highly rated Catholic high school, having earned a seven out of ten on its overall GreatPhillySchools rating and a nine for college readiness. The diverse school also ranks fifth in the city for 9th grade to college completion (45%), which is the highest among the city’s Catholic high schools. The New Teacher Project (TNTP) has been working with Little Flower to analyze and improve academic programming and start the process of introducing the International Baccalaureate (IB) program, which, when implemented, will make Little Flower the only all-girls Catholic school in Pennsylvania to offer this accelerated course of study.

“We are humbled to be receiving this generous grant from PSP. The PSP Investment Team took great care in fully understanding every aspect of Little Flower’s operation in order to conclude affirmatively that the school was capable of attaining such aspirational goals to improve our student outcomes.”
“We are humbled to be receiving this generous grant from PSP. The PSP Investment Team took great care in fully understanding every aspect of Little Flower’s operation in order to conclude affirmatively that the school was capable of attaining such aspirational goals to improve our student outcomes.”
– Jeane McNamara, President, Little Flower Catholic High School for Girls

PSP funded the high-intensity, high-support leadership development of over 30 school leaders at six public charter schools—Belmont, Deep Roots, Global Leadership Academy Southwest, Philadelphia Hebrew Public, Russell Byers and TECH Freire—with a $318,000 grant. Facilitated by Skyrocket Education Training, the leadership team of each school works on vision-setting, creating effective systems and structures, and establishing a high bar for instruction and student learning.

“This program has been critically helpful for our first-year leader and our entire leadership team in building the foundations for effective management.”
“This program has been critically helpful for our first-year leader and our entire leadership team in building the foundations for effective management.”

– Carol Domb, Ed.D, Chief Executive Officer, Russell Byers Charter School

Starting in fall 2020, Philadelphia High School for Girls—a public, college-preparatory high school with a long history of providing a high-quality education—began increasing enrollment year-over-year to eventually provide opportunities for 360 additional students to attend this great school. Over the last three years, the average graduation rate at Girls High has been 93% percent, and the average first-fall college matriculation (students who are entering college the first fall after graduating high school) rate was 83%. The PSP grant to Girls High not only opened the door for more students to attend, but it also helped fund the school’s summer onboarding program. Since Girls High enrolls a diverse group of students from across the city, the summer program helped students in the larger freshman class develop academic skills and study habits to prepare for the transition to a college-prep high school.

Impact of the Summer Onboarding Program:
The high rate of attendance for the PSP-supported program translated into better academic achievement as measured by GPA. Students who attended the summer program were 45% more likely to have a GPA above 3.0 and about 34% less likely to have a GPA below 3.0 compared to the rest of the 9th grade.

♦ Photo: Students at Girls High in March 2020 via Girls High’s Twitter page.

Career-focused education will become even more important as Philadelphia endeavors to recover from rapid unemployment created by the pandemic. With that in mind, PSP’s Board of Directors approved a three-year, $344,000 grant to create a College and Workforce Equity Partnership spanning 19 high schools in the School District of Philadelphia. The schools, all part of Learning Network 1, will partner with local nonprofit Steppingstone Scholars to provide tailored college preparation and career-connected learning to nearly 300 students annually. These students will participate in dual enrollment classes (credit-bearing college courses) and internships or other workplace learning experiences. The investment aims to help students by ensuring they are prepared for—and can enroll in, afford and complete—postsecondary education that puts them on their chosen career trajectories. The initiative expands upon similar and successful efforts that Steppingstone has managed in a handful of schools, including Carver High School of Engineering & Science, a PSP portfolio school.

“The support that PSP has provided will allow us to scale up our work to give more low-income students the opportunity to access and be successful at high performing public schools. Additionally, this initiative is the foundation of our goals to increase preparation for college and lower college tuition costs for low-income public school students in Philadelphia. We are excited and deeply appreciative of this transformative investment.”
“The support that PSP has provided will allow us to scale up our work to give more low-income students the opportunity to access and be successful at high performing public schools. Additionally, this initiative is the foundation of our goals to increase preparation for college and lower college tuition costs for low-income public school students in Philadelphia. We are excited and deeply appreciative of this transformative investment.”
– Sean Vereen, President, Steppingstone Scholars and member of the PSP Board of Directors

♦ Opened in 2020, the new school building in the Powelton Village neighborhood, the area in West Philadelphia that surrounds Drexel University, combines two top-performing schools, Samuel Powel Elementary School and Science Leadership Academy Middle School (SLAMS). PSP provided seed funding—a $1.8M grant—in 2015 to help support initial planning for this collaborative effort. PSP also provided SLAMS with an incubation and start up grant for its launch in 2016, and funding towards the growth of Powel, which now serves more out-of-catchment students than in-catchment students. (Photo: Quatrefoil Consulting LLC courtesy of uCity Square)