How Many People Work for the Philadelphia School District?
Twelve school years of Philadelphia school district positions, from the employee files the district publishes. The same data behind SDP's 26,433 Positions, Mapped by What They Do and Philly Schools Roster Now Lists One Position for Every Nine Students. What each job pays is a separate question, with What Does the Philadelphia School District Pay?.
Who does the work
Positions by role family, 2025-2026
Twelve years of the same filter
Positions every school year, with the same filters applied and the year filter ignored
Positions per 1,000 students
The same selection against district enrollment, 2014-2015 to 2025-2026
The biggest job titles here
The ten largest titles in this selection, with what each one pays
| Title | Positions | Median annual pay | Pay type |
|---|---|---|---|
| TEACHER | 7,117 | $94,315 | Salaried |
| SPECIAL EDUCATION ASSISTANT | 3,028 | $20,080 | Salaried |
| TEACHER, SPECIAL EDUCATION | 1,856 | $90,503 | Salaried |
| CONTRACTED TEACHER, DAILY | 1,435 | — | Daily |
| GENERAL CLEANER, 8 HOURS | 731 | $35,921 | Salaried |
| NON DISTRICT EMPLOYEE | 694 | — | Daily |
| CONTRACTED TEACHER, +20 DAYS | 596 | — | Daily |
| STUDENT CLIMATE STAFF, 6 HOURS | 436 | $20,000 | Salaried |
| FOOD SERVICES ASSISTANT | 412 | $20,000 | Salaried |
| SCHOOL COUNSELOR | 389 | $99,597 | Salaried |
Looking for what one job pays? Search every job title the district lists.
Notes, Sources, and Methodology
The data. The source is the School District of Philadelphia’s Employee_Data_All_Years release, twelve annual snapshots covering the 2014-15 through 2025-26 school years, 250,950 rows in all. Every row is a position.
Method. Headcount counts every row, including per-diem and non-district posts, which is why the tool’s 2025-26 figure is 26,433 positions while the salaried count is 21,543. Role families are a keyword classification of what the title describes; organization classes are the district’s own, carried forward across its 2025-26 reorganisation so the counts stay comparable on both sides of it. Positions per thousand students uses district enrollment only, not charter or alternative schools: 72.5 per thousand in 2014-15, 116.2 in 2025-26, a 40.1% rise against a 12.6% enrollment drop.
Limitations. Each school year is one quarterly snapshot file, not a headcount taken on a single day. A role family is a title pattern, not a job description: a nurse, a reading specialist and a data clerk all land in school support.
What this tool does not answer. What a job pays, and how the pay is spread across the workforce. That is a separate tool built on the same files, so the position counts here and there match.