Schools Trying Their Best To Keep Attendance Steady During SEPTA Strike
PHILADELPHIA (CBS) -- Attendance in the Philadelphia School District is taking a double-digit hit during the SEPTA strike.
A district spokesman says Tuesday's attendance was about 80-percent, down from 93 percent the week before. Yesterday, about 85 percent of students were in school.
One out of five district students rides SEPTA. The district is not providing alternate transportation during the strike.
Some schools are trying to do something about that.
Four yellow buses pull away from Smedley Elementary in Frankford, bound for Mastery Charter's Lenfest campus in Old City. Mastery has hired 30 buses at $300 a pop to shuttle students to seven of its schools during the SEPTA strike.
Mastery COO Joe Ferguson says, "We're able to do it for a few days. Obviously it's not something that's sustainable for us from a budget perspective. But we have implemented it before."
Mastery ran the shuttles on Tuesday, but did not yesterday and attendance fell to about 50 percent. Now, the shuttles are back.
Seventh grader Jameel Brooks says he has no other way to get to class.
DeNardo: "Did you go yesterday?"
"No. I went on Tuesday."
DeNardo: "You didn't go to school yesterday? Why not?"
"Because my parents were at work."
Without SEPTA, 9th grader Michael Iraola would have no way to get to from Frankford to Mastery Charter's Lenfest campus in Old City.
"If we don't have any buses, we can't go to school that day. So it's just messing up our education."
Ferguson says attendance was around 80 percent when the shuttles ran Tuesday. But they were not running Wednesday, and he says attendance dropped to around 50 percent.
Mastery has pushed back the start of the school day to 10 am, during the SEPTA strike.
