Dr. Tony B. Watlington Sr. was appointed superintendent of the School District of Philadelphia, the nation’s 8th largest school district with nearly 200,000 students, on April 1, 2022 and was sworn in on June 16, 2022. A collaborative and results-oriented leader, Dr. Watlington began his tenure by launching an aggressive Entry Plan composed of 3 phases. Phase one included a listening and learning tour with 90 sessions in his first 100 days, phase 2 included a Transition Team composed of 100 diverse Philadelphians and K-12 national experts who issued a formal report with short and long-term recommendations, and phase 3 includes the development of an aggressive 5-year strategic planning process to position the school district to become the fastest improving large, urban school district in the country.
Under Superintendent Watlington’s leadership, the School District of Philadelphia outpaces other large urban districts nationwide and similar districts in Pennsylvania for math in grades 3-8 and reading in grades 3-8 based on the Education Recovery Scorecard, a report released by Harvard University’s Center for Education Policy Research and The Educational Opportunity Project at Stanford University. This report included 30 states representing about 60% of the national public school student population.
