Philly will pay $500,000 to credential public school career and technical education teachers
About 160 district teachers are pursuing permanent career and technical education credentials. Philly is one of just a handful of districts that had not paid for CTE teachers' certificates.
Jessica Lawyer left a career as a chef to teach Philly kids culinary arts.
She loves the work teaching at Edison High, but it requires sacrifices: She’s had to pay out-of-pocket to earn the college credits she needs to get her permanent teaching credentials.
But Lawyer and other teachers in her position just got an assist: the Philadelphia School District announced Monday it will now cover costs for its career and technical educators to get the teaching certifications that will allow them to remain in Philly classrooms long term.
» READ MORE: The number of Philly teachers without full certification has more than doubled. It comes at a cost.
“It will be a huge help, especially in the times that we’re now in — the cost of everything is rising,” said Lawyer, who’s teaching culinary arts in a summer program at Swenson Arts and Technical High School in the Northeast. “To have this funding is just going to be another boost and motivator for me as a teacher.”
That funding — $500,000 for the 2025-26 school year — is coming not from the district’s budget, but from the city’s general fund, after a push from City Councilmember Katherine Gilmore Richardson.
Gilmore Richardson and Superintendent Tony B. Watlington Sr. trumpeted the funds at a news conference at Swenson on the first day of summer school for 20,000-plus students Monday.
“Remember, career and technical education teachers don’t just do a typical reading and math or social studies or science curricula,” Watlington said. “When we bring them to school districts, we’ve got to do everything we can to help support them.”
Philadelphia schools offer 43 different career and technical education programs, from culinary and automotive to welding and biotechnology. About 160 of the district’s 9,000-plus educators teach career and technical education specialties.
Stiff competition for CTE teachers
The CTE teacher boost comes at a key time, with politicians across the city and the U.S. emphasizing job readiness for all students, not just those who plan to attend college.
Gilmore Richardson’s life before she entered politics informed the push for this funding, she said.
“I learned when I was a teacher at Overbrook High School that not all of our young people will go to college, but they should be college or career ready at graduation, and with this needed, important, necessary investment, we are doing just that,” she said.
Competition for teachers is already stiff, with a nationwide educator shortage.
But the Philadelphia School District has long been at a disadvantage for hiring CTE teachers, who trade industry jobs that often pay more for classroom work. Philly was one of just a few of Pennsylvania’s 500 districts that did not pay for such teachers to earn teaching credentials.
The new funding, Watlington said, “does nothing but help us to attack that declining teacher pipeline. Every penny is going to be used for that good work.”
CTE teachers typically enter the profession with a one-year emergency certification, then transition to intern certification that gives them a runway to earn permanent certificates.
Lawyer teaches full time but also attends Temple University, where she’s pursuing a teaching credential and a master’s degree.
“I think it’s an incredible incentive, to not just lighten the burden for teachers, but to entice more industry professionals to come from industry and make that transition to education,“ she said.
Gilmore Richardson said the city believes the $500,000 should cover “a majority of the need” of the district’s 160 CTE teachers.
But, she said, the aim is continue the funding.
“This is the first of a really good thing,” she said, “and it won’t be the last.”