Author: Rebecca Redelmeier

Sign up for Chalkbeat Philadelphia’s free newsletter to keep up with the city’s public school system.For Philadelphia parent Samatha Bromfield, the choice to send her kids to Paul Robeson High School was deeply thought-out.Bromfield said she spoke to her children and saw what they needed: “They needed something small. They needed a family.” That’s what she found at Robeson, which has around 300 students and where the teachers all know her children’s names.But now, the school’s future is in doubt. Robeson is one of the 20 schools the district wants to shutter in an effort to address declining enrollment and…

Sign up for Chalkbeat Philadelphia’s free newsletter to keep up with news on the city’s public school system.The Philadelphia school district will not announce its recommendations this month for which schools will close, pushing back a long-awaited deadline, the district said Tuesday.Instead, the district will launch a survey to get further community feedback about its facilities planning process and shape its recommendations. The district will share results from its survey in December, and “will go through a comprehensive public feedback period before [submitting] final recommendations to the Board of Education” according to a statement from district spokesperson Monique Braxton.District officials…

Sign up for Chalkbeat Philadelphia’s free newsletter to keep up with the city’s public school system.At the end of each school year, school officials in Philadelphia ask graduating seniors what they plan to do after high school.Thousands report that they plan to go to college.But when the fall rolls around, hundreds of those students do not end up matriculating in a postsecondary program, according to a new report from the School District of Philadelphia.District data shows that the phenomenon, called “summer melt,” has increased in recent years. In the Class of 2024, 40% of students who initially planned to go…

At Cornell University, one professor is helping students navigate their emotions about climate change by learning about food. Rebecca Redelmeier/WSKG hide caption toggle caption Rebecca Redelmeier/WSKG More than 50% of youth in the United States are very or extremely worried about climate change, according to a recent survey in the scientific journal The Lancet. The researchers, who surveyed over 15,000 people aged 16–25, also found that more than one in three young people said their feelings about climate change negatively affect their daily lives. The study adds to a growing area of research that finds that climate change, which is…