Chalkbeat

The soundtrack to Philly’s waning gun violence

2026-04-12T10:00:00+00:00

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This story was published in collaboration with The New York Times.

Zayvion Hamiel, also known as ZayMoney, sits at a DJ booth surrounded by speakers nearly as big as he is. He queues up a remix of Beyoncé’s “Run the World (Girls),” as a line of teens prepare to walk a makeshift runway.

This is Zay’s House. From the street, it looks like a ‌‌nondescript building on a ‌narrow block in North Philadelphia, one of the neighborhoods hardest hit by the city’s gun violence crisis. But inside is a community space where modeling practice, graphic design, and DJ-ing happen regularly, and where Hamiel, 13, his siblings and other aspiring creators spend some of their after-school time.

Teenagers in Philadelphia say music is key to helping them process the anger, grief, and loneliness that come with growing up around gunfire. Drill music, an aggressive subgenre of rap that has been accused of glorifying and inflaming violence, rose to prominence in the 2010s and has a hold on many teens. But a growing number of artists like Hamiel and programs in the city aim to harness music to deter violence.

Zayvion Hamiel, 13, known musically as the rapper ZayMoney, livestreams outside his home, behind a family car with branding for his event space, Zay's House.

“I started seeing these kids in the streets, and they’re fighting, they’re shooting each other, and I wanted them to stop,” Hamiel said. “That was when I was 6.”

That year, his cousin was shot. Hamiel soon started writing verses with his mother, who is also his music producer and manager and runs an anti-violence nonprofit. Their goal is to inspire young people to make and listen to rap that envisions a better Philadelphia.

Young, dying young trying to prove a point / Being Black in the hood and staying out of the joint.
Zayvion Hamiel

Zayvion Hamiel, who's learning the craft from DJ-ing from his friend, Tamaj Garner, who also goes by DJ Maj, DJs at Zay's House.

Zayvion Hamiel holds a microphone for his brother RJ, 4, during a livestream.

Qidere Johnson, aka LGP Qua, rose to prominence as a young North Philadelphia artist pushing for a different kind of rap in the city.

Johnson, a father of two, filmed videos on porches and at community events‌, with lyrics touching on systemic inequities.

Then on Mother’s Day last year, he was shot in broad daylight in the city’s Kensington section. He was 30.

The community response to his death was swift and heartfelt. Government officials named a street corner after him. The Philadelphia rapper Meek Mill paid tribute on Instagram.

For many young rappers, like Honesty Dawkins, 16, Johnson modeled success in the face of intense social and industry pressure to make violent rap.

“For him to go against what everybody else is saying, being like, ‘Hey, yo, this isn’t cool — like, this is what we doing, and it’s not right,’ it was very brave of him,” she said.

A street sign at the corner of 9th and Clearfield streets memorializes Philadelphia rapper and anti-violence advocate Qidere Johnson, known as LGP Qua. Johnson was shot and killed during an attempted robbery in 2025.

Dawkins, who goes by the artist name Honimommi, lost a close friend to gun violence in January. While grief is part of her reality, her music focuses on confidence and success.

She started laying tracks in a closet-size recording studio at a ‌violence prevention space not far from Zay’s House called As I Plant This Seed, where she still spends many ‌evenings‌.

“I don’t talk about harming people and stuff like that,” she said of her lyrics. “I don’t want my kids to grow up thinking that Philly is just a bunch of gun violence and people who are rapping about gun violence.”

Resisting the lure of drill

A lot of commercial and social pressure pushes young artists to rap about gun violence. Drill rap, which originated in Chicago, is highly popular and notoriously heavy. Videos often feature rappers backed up by large groups of masked people holding guns.

“The drill scene really took off, especially in West Philadelphia, especially during the pandemic,” said the rapper Clinton Mills Jr., 25, who goes by CJ Da Prodigy. “If you a Philly rapper, people expect you to rap about killing and about selling drugs.”

The “virality of violence” on YouTube and other platforms makes producing music about it more alluring than addressing its root causes, said Christopher R. Rogers, a scholar of Black culture and an assistant professor at Haverford College near Philadelphia.

But drill music has caught the attention of prosecutors. “The district attorney has gotten involved,” said Vinte Clemons, who makes music as ARSIN and is one of the city’s first adult artists to explicitly push against violent rap. “A lot of people have got locked up. A lot of people have died over it.”

Bill Fritze, an assistant district attorney in Philadelphia, said his office’s investigations had diminished some groups, but he expected music celebrating bloodshed to continue as long as there was a profit motive.

Honesty Kearse, 19, said shifting music culture away from violence ‌feels urgent. She lost a sibling to gun violence, and worries about the influence drill has on her younger brother and the teenagers he hangs out with. She is taking a rap writing class as a way to process the grief, and to try to get a message across to her peers.

“I just want a world where I don’t have to worry about if my siblings is gunned down just because they’re wearing black,” she said.

Kearse’s after-school program is one of many that youth mentors say help young people channel an interest in music making in a different direction.

DJ Dommis guest lectures at a Spin Academy class hosted by FamFrequency, a nonprofit that helps young people learn skills for the music industry.

When Jonathan Edwards started FamFrequency Productions four years ago, drill music “was all that,” he said, even among his students who weren’t actively involved in street crime. Today, he encourages them to tap into their authentic experiences instead.

“Reflect on your week; put this in a lyric,” Edwards said. “Now half the city who is 15 years old, who just broke up with their girlfriend can relate to that lyric.”

Cassidy Brown, 20, credits FamFrequency for helping him find his own voice.

“My brand started with a sort of Batman persona,” said Brown, who performs under the name ‌c12. “It was dark. I was mad. I didn’t want anyone to know my face. I was kind of like a vigilante without the violence.”

Cassidy Brown, known musically as c12, mixes one of his songs.

After some time working with Edwards, he became more comfortable showing his face and rapping about subjects like race and gender identity.

“Tryna soften up a world that wants to see me as a brute. / Would my ancestors be proud to see how far I grew my roots?”
Cassidy Brown

“As I progressed with my music I was like, I want everybody to know,” he said. “It feels amazing. It feels freeing. Because it’s a coping mechanism for me, just to dump all of that out there and get it off my mind.”

To make it in the music industry, Brown is broadening his mix of relevant skills. In addition to writing music, he is studying mechanical engineering at Temple University and interning at a local recording studio.

Cassidy Brown mixes one of his songs.

Cassidy Brown sits for a portrait at MilkBoy the Studio, where he is currently an intern.

“Learning how to mix and match tracks and how to troubleshoot, learning how mics work,” he said‌. “‌That’s really where the money is at.”

Dancing to new beats

Close to 1,000 ‌teenagers crowded the edges of a carpeted rectangular dance floor on a recent Wednesday, cheering and shouting as a three-on-three dance battle heated up.

“Tanging,” the Philadelphia-grown dance style that competitors perform, is fast-paced, athletic, and at times combative. It’s set to bouncy and explosive beats‌, a far cry from the heavy tones‌ of drill rap.

A dance cypher at Level Up Philly, a West Philadelphia violence prevention initiative.

When someone threw down especially hard, teenagers stormed the floor. An emcee kept it moving, and a row of judges perched on lifeguard chairs determined the winners.

At Level Up Philly, a West Philadelphia violence prevention initiative, teens and organizers say the dance scene lets ‌young people burn energy while finding a sense of belonging they may otherwise seek from gangs.

Aaron Campbell, founder of Level Up Philly, walks with teens.

A participant dances in the middle of a dance cypher at Level Up Philly. The anti-violence group provides a safe space for kids to engage in activities outside of school.

“These are the ones who would just as easily be on the other side if we didn’t provide this,” said Aaron Campbell, the nonprofit’s founder and executive director.

On Campbell’s forearm, a tattooed line of seven stick figures marks every Level Up participant killed by a bullet from 2022 to 2025. Last summer, ‌a dance battle emcee was shot and killed.

And then there are the injured children. Citywide, there have been more than 1,000 nonfatal shooting victims under 18 since 2020. Shootings have declined significantly since 2023. Campbell keeps gauze in the kitchen for changing bandages.

Dance is one way for young people to block out the negative, said Tacori Aaria Mateen. She’s 15, a rapper, athlete, and “kid influencer” with close to 600,000 Instagram followers. She’s known as the Philly Princess and also performs under the name T-Cori.

One of her ‌most popular videos, “Hips,” features dozens of Philadelphia children goofing off with their friends, grooving in pajamas in their kitchens and dance-battling on their blocks.

“Dance like a butterfly, hips like a bee / Killin’ these moves like Muhammad Ali”
Tacori Aaria Mateen

“The whole point is giving kids something to do than being out in the streets,” Mateen said. “Instead, you could go make a dance to this, or you could start making your own songs.”

Mateen performs at school assemblies, skating rinks, and pizza parties, sometimes with other youth influencers, including ZayMoney.

Music artist, influencer, and entrepreneur Tacori Aaria Mateen, known both as T-Cori and Philly Princess, dances while her mother, Taliah Mateen, films her for a TikTok video.

Tacori Aaria Mateen stands for a portrait.

The violence prevention activist and music producer Tommy Blackwell said events where kids could express themselves were ‌critical to deterring gun violence.

But sustaining those spaces is a challenge. An open mic Blackwell used to organize with a stipend for nonviolent rap performances has been on hold since November because a state grant dried up.

The challenge gains urgency as ‌summer approaches‌, the prime season for block parties, music festivals and other opportunities for artists, and also when teenagers are out of school and shootings ‌typically spike.‌

“There are thousands of LGP Quas in the city of Philadelphia,” Blackwell said. “We have to provide those platforms if we want to save lives.”

Visuals by Kriston Jae Bethel.

This article was published as part of a collaboration between Chalkbeat Philadelphia and The New York Times’s Headway Initiative, focused on gun violence in Philadelphia. This reporting is supported by the Stavros Niarchos Foundation (SNF), with the Local Media Foundation serving as fiscal sponsor. Funders have no control over the selection, focus of stories or the editing process and do not review stories before publication.

Sammy Caiola covers solutions to gun violence in and around Philadelphia schools. Have ideas for her? Get in touch at scaiola@chalkbeat.org.

‘We can be anyone we want’: Meet the team making a new name for Philly high school basketball

2026-02-20T21:47:57+00:00

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This story originally appeared in Kensington Voice.

The Kensington Tigers play “trench.”

Scrappy, some trash talking, putting their all on the line. That’s how starting point guard Rob Smith describes their style.

“We want to make sure we don’t go out like some punks,” Smith said.

And this season, they didn’t. The Tigers went undefeated for six weeks from the jump — winning 13 games in a row. It’s the best the team has performed in a regular season since at least 2005, according to a database that tracks Philadelphia high school team stats, marked by wins against tough opponents like Olney Charter High School — which went on to win the division — Thomas A. Edison High School, and East High School of West Chester Area School District. They built a new reputation for Kensington basketball and, in the meantime, boosted school morale.

The Tigers are made up of four Kensington public high schools — Kensington High School, Kensington Creative and Performing Arts High School, Kensington Health and Sciences Academy, or KHSA, and the U School. Most of the players live within walking distance from KHSA.

Heading into the season, they might’ve been a recipe for low expectations. Some players had been overlooked by other high schools, about half of the starting lineup is considered undersized for the sport, and they represent Kensington, a neighborhood that comes with a reputation. But that served as motivation, and they turned low expectations into fuel.

Kensington High School's Reid Smith, center, in action during a game against Northeast High School.

“We looked at ourselves as the underdogs,” said co-captain Alejandro Paulino. “Nobody ever heard of Kensington for basketball. We came in here to change that ... We came in with the mindset that we can be anyone we want. We just gotta put the work in.”

They expect the best from each other. When one player is down, another is by their side helping them shake it off. At their best, they move well for each other. They spread the ball around. They strive to create a well-rounded system.

“It’s not one person above the team,” said Ryan Smith, father of twins Rob and Reid Smith. “Everybody plays for each other, plays hard for each other.”

Kensington Tigers have a coach with high standards

The team made a name this year with new coach Ethan Feuer at the helm. Feuer, who’s also a beloved ninth-grade English teacher at Kensington Health Sciences Academy, started coaching the Tigers’ JV team in 2023. Now he’s the varsity coach, and brought most of the starting players up with him. The core of the team (Paulino, Reid and Rob Smith, and Frankie Ramirez) have also been playing with each other on club teams since middle school, at least. There’s team synergy.

Feuer began his coaching career at Benjamin Franklin High School under mentor Ron Sizer. He credits the Tigers’ success to its culture — partly his tight relationships with the players.

“There’s a love that we share that is really important when it comes to winning games,” Feuer said. “When you’re facing adversity, you rely on the relationships that you’ve built.”

The team also has an unyielding work ethic. “I’ve never seen such strong commitment from a team to improve as individuals and as a unit,” Feuer said. Every varsity player shows up consistently on time for practice. In previous seasons, attendance would have dwindled.

In addition to preparing plays, conditioning, and practicing skills, the team watches recordings of competitors’ games before they face them. “Know thy enemy,” Feuer said.

Feuer maintains high standards on and off the court. Each player signs a contract agreeing to maintain grades of C or above in every class. If he spots a C, he’ll check in on them. If the explanation is just that they’ve been slacking, they sit out, he said. If there’s a challenge they need support with, he’s there. He’ll help them through whatever assignment they’re missing and connect with teachers, if needed.

Ethan Feuer, head coach of Kensington High School boys basketball, speaks with the team.

On a weekday in late January, towards the end of the season, the team had practice after their second unexpected loss — a one-possession game. In the Kensington Creative and Performing Arts High School, or KCAPA, gymnasium, the team sat in folding chairs and focused on a screen. They were rewatching the second half of the game to learn from mistakes.

Feuer stood at the front, gesturing enthusiastically or pointing to open players. He noted low energy, drooping heads, missed free throws. They were off their game. Players asked for rewinds.

“The only thing in life that’s free gentleman, that’s free throws. Nothing standing in our way,” he said. They had missed 23 free throws in the last two games, according to Feuer, and lost by a collective 20 points. Those games were in their grasp.

They needed more confidence, to stay calm when the odds were stacked against them, Feuer said. “There can’t be any excuses.”

Players respect the agreement to prioritize school over basketball. It lends to a more serious team culture. But most of all, they appreciate how Feuer treats them. Exceeding competitors’ expectations is great, though for them, it’s more important to live up to Feuer’s and each other’s.

He’s “like my school father,” Reid Smith said. For Rob, Feuer keeps him intact. “That’s one guy I can go and talk to when I’m mad,” Rob said. ”He’ll tell me what’s right and what’s wrong, because I’m still learning. I just take heed of what he’s saying.”

Paulino considers Feuer handing him the captain title as a sign of trust. “When I let him down, I feel like I let myself down.”

Ethan Feuer, head coach of Kensington High School boys basketball, speaks with the team at half time of a game. Feuer stresses academics and accountability with his players.

‘A strong brotherhood’ drives team’s success

The players describe their teammates as brothers. Their friendships work in the game and in the hallways. They hang out after school and help each other with homework. They remind each other to show up on time to practice. Their camaraderie translates to the court.

“We built a strong brotherhood slash team, and that’s what led us to win 13 games in a row,” Reid Smith said.

Rob, Paulino, and Feuer gave a rundown of the team: Reid, starting shooting guard, is known as “the sniper” because he “can knock it down anytime,” Rob said. He’s like “agent zero,” a guy who handles business and gets out. He’s “going in there with his business bag.”

Reid trusts Rob, also known as “RB3,” with his life. Rob is the team’s top scorer and plays with ferocity and speed. While the twins aren’t exactly telepathic, they know what the other is going to do before they do it. If one is on a fast break, the other is trailing.

Kensington High School's Alejandro Paulino dribbles down the court during a game.

Then there’s Paulino, a starting combo forward and a high-impact player who does everything on the court with hustle. He’s an influence. He wears responsibility for more than just himself. Fellow co-captain and team role model is Nyree Ellis, a forward and well-rounded player. “He can’t be knocked down,” Rob said.

Trenton Blackwell, though he suffered from a hip fracture in the sixth game, has a natural gift — he’s a high-flyer and can dunk off the dribble. Nasir Davis, an honor-roll Kensington High School student, was a “blacktop ball player,” Feuer said. The dream was to “convert him to hardwood ... Now he’s one of our better defenders. He can jump out of the gym.”

Freshman Qayaan Scott is a high-impact player who gets crucial rebounds. Scott was encouraged to attend KHSA and join the Tigers by friend Frankie Ramirez. Ramirez, a first-year at KHSA, was the team’s sixth man. But after Ellis’ injury, he joined the starting lineup. As the only starting freshman, he knocks out three-pointers like it’s his job.

Daryne Ligon, 6 feet, 5 inches tall, brings height, works hard on defense, and collects key rebounds. He’s also a straight-A student, according to Feuer. Dereon Dews, or “Ddews,” plays hard every minute he gets in the game. “He’s the hardest worker on the team,” Feuer said. “He sets the standard.”

Kensington High School's Nyree Ellis, left, tries to control a rebound.

Jesse Wise, starting forward, is strong and agile. He plays with intensity, like the stakes are on his shoulders. Wise transferred to KHSA as a junior just for basketball.

Wise was a walk-on as a freshman at Saints John Neumann and Maria Goretti Catholic High School, a private school with a powerhouse basketball program in South Philadelphia. But by his third year, he was on the bench. When he was on the brink of quitting the sport, dampened by low confidence, he reached for Feuer.

Feuer coached him on a summer team and recognized his raw talent. He couldn’t let Wise quit the game, mostly because of the impact it would have on his quality of life. “He’s a great student, a great kid, and someone who impressed me on the court right away,” Feuer said. “It would be a shame to lose him from the sport.”

He and Ryan Smith, also a KHSA school safety officer, contacted Jesse’s grandmother and caretaker, Judith Williams-Wise, to pitch the idea of Jesse transferring.

It wasn’t an easy decision for Williams-Wise, 77, of South Philly. Neumann and Goretti was like a family tradition. Her oldest son and other family members attended. But sitting on the bench was affecting her grandson’s sense of self.

She saw this as a chance for Wise to be happy, to redeem himself.

“I always tell him, ‘You’re like the last of me. I’m just trying to make sure you’re okay. I want to help you make your dreams.’”

Kensington High School's Jesse Wise shoots during a game against Northeast High School.

Wise joined for the second semester of his junior year and quickly became an integral part of the team. He’s the kind of player who does everything — rebounds, steals, assists.

“You need guys who aren’t afraid to get their hands dirty. He’s number one on that list,” said coach Dan McDowell. “You can’t win without players like that.”

Since the change, Wise is more confident. “I don’t feel like I have to prove myself all the time,” he said. He also has the top grades of the entire junior class.

At a game in early January, grandmother Williams-Wise was sitting proudly in attendance, as she usually is for home games. Wise ran over for a hug.

Off the court, Wise is soft-spoken, sensitive. He credits his grandmother for everything. “She’s the reason why I’m still around ... she shaped me to be the man I am today,” he said.

Of the team, “Nobody loses their cool when we play,” Wise said. “We’re all just trying to help each other get better.”

Kensington High School boys basketball fans react during a game.

After dealing with a few late-season injuries, the Tigers landed third in their division, with a 15-4 overall record including non-league games.

As the season progressed, teachers and staff were buying team merchandise, Feuer said. More students and school community members attended games. Excitement grew.

In February, they made it to the playoffs. They planned a “blackout” in school — students and staff wore all black in support on game day. About 200 people attended the home game at KCAPA, according to Feuer.

“The whole community rallied around this team,” he said.

They lost in a heartbreaker — by just three points in overtime.

Qayaan Scott comforts Rob Smith after the Kensington Tigers' first loss of the season.

But the season was an overall success. They put Kensington basketball on the map.

“We built a culture of winning that the community can be proud of, both on and off the court,” Feuer said. “I am so proud of this team and I know the best is yet to come.”

They have high hopes for the future. With a younger team, they’ll have four of the same starters back next year — Paulino, the Smith twins, and Wise.

“Now every team wants to beat us, but we’re still the underdogs,” Paulino said. “We still didn’t get what we wanted yet, we want to go far.”

By the end of that practice in January, the team scrimmaged. One of the last plays signifies a slice of what makes the team special — the way they share the ball.

“Let’s see some confidence,” Feuer yelled.

They ran hand-offs — Scott handed off to another player, Ramirez ran a back door cut and made a lay up. It looked easy, smooth.

Watching from the sidelines, Smith narrated: “Everybody plays unselfishly. Everybody loves each other. So everybody carries the ball.”

Checkmate Violence tournament aims to prevent Philadelphia gun violence through school chess

2026-01-27T19:42:23+00:00

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“Say good luck and shake hands at the beginning of the game, and say good game at the end.”

The tournament director gave this parting advice to 150 student chess players on a recent Saturday morning at Saint Joseph’s University in Philadelphia.

The participants, all in grades K-12, were silent and attentive as they prepared to compete.

That level of concentration is what organizers of the 19th annual PECO-ASAP Checkmate Violence tournament aim to instill in Philadelphia youth. The idea driving the event, which is hosted by the After School Activities Partnerships, or ASAP, is to protect kids from gun violence by keeping them busy, and teaching them critical thinking.

“Think before you do something, think before you act,” said Gil Motley, the event’s founder.

It’s what he used to tell the kids he coached in 2008, when he launched the chess tournament in response to concerns about shootings. He says it’s just as needed today.

Gil Motley, founder of Philadelphia's Checkmate Violence chess tournament, receives an honor from After School Activities Partnerships executive director Beth Tomlinson on Jan. 24.

There were 206 fatal shootings in Philadelphia last year, and about 10% of victims were 18 or younger according to data from the City of Philadelphia.

Arguments are the motive behind half of all shootings in Philadelphia, according to a 2022 multi-agency report.

Montgomery Brown, an 11th grader at the George Washington Carver High School of Engineering and Science in North Philly, said gun violence happens “because there’s just a lot of kids on the street who don’t really have anywhere to go.”

Montgomery Brown poses at the annual Checkmate Violence chess tournament on Jan. 24. He competes with his team from George Washington Carver High School of Engineering and Science.

He’s been able to avoid dangerous situations by keeping his head down, and spending time in the ASAP chess club at Carver.

“The thing about chess is it’s honestly the perfect way to just get kids to sit inside, sit down, and think about what they’re doing,” he said.

About 1,000 students across the city play chess with ASAP. The nonprofit supports chess, drama, Scrabble, and debate clubs at K-12 schools as well as libraries and recreation centers.

Most clubs meet twice a week after school, though some meet every day. Students learn from a club leader, who may be a teacher or other school staffer, and trained volunteers. ASAP provides supplies, curriculum, and support from a site director. Individual clubs may put on their own tournaments throughout the year.

Checkmate Violence is ASAP’s free annual citywide chess tournament, which draws about 200 to 250 players every year, organizers said.

Chess has been used to reduce violence between incarcerated people, and substantial research supports the use of after-school programs more broadly as violence prevention. Chess has been shown to improve math skills and “overall cognitive ability” in middle school students, though it has not been studied explicitly as a violence intervention for youth.

After-school hours are an especially dangerous time for children: The risk of child firearm injuries around New York City public schools was 45% higher between 2 p.m. and 6 p.m. on school days, according to researchers at Boston University.

In Philadelphia, where many young people have lost friends to shootings or live in places that feel unsafe, chess clubs serve as a haven.

At Northeast High School, teacher and chess coach Saul Machles said his club was a space for students to heal after several of their classmates were shot at a SEPTA bus stop near Northeast High School in 2024.

One of their fellow chess team members was injured, and eventually came back to the team.

Other students in the club “were definitely traumatized,” he said. “It was something we had to really struggle with.”

Trophies for the annual Checkmate Violence chess tournament on Saturday, Jan. 24, 2026 in Philadelphia.

Lemuel Rosa, a site director with ASAP, helps run the chess club at Esperanza Academy Charter School in Kensington, a Philadelphia neighborhood hit hard by the opioid crisis. He said his chess club offers a break for students who grapple with stress both at home and in their communities.

“We’re just a club, but it kind of becomes an extended family,” he said. “I really enjoy that they have that escape. Because people find negative escapes, but this is a positive.”

This story has been updated to include the full name of the chess tournament.

This story is part of a collaboration between Chalkbeat Philadelphia and The New York Times’s Headway Initiative, supported by the Stavros Niarchos Foundation (SNF) via the Local Media Foundation.

Sammy Caiola covers solutions to gun violence in and around Philadelphia schools. Have ideas for her? Get in touch at scaiola@chalkbeat.org.

Philly mayor adds schools to extended-day initiative, says it’s year-round school ‘in my mind’

2025-06-27T19:22:24+00:00

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Philadelphia Mayor Cherelle Parker’s signature “extended day, extended year” school initiative is expanding to 15 new schools next year, even as it remains a far cry from the “year-round school” she promised on the campaign trail.

At a City Hall press conference Friday, Parker said the 15 new schools will offer free before- and after-school programs, “camp experiences” during winter and spring breaks, and will participate in the city’s existing six-week Summer Achievers summer camp starting with the 2025-26 school year.

Friday’s announcement brings the total number of schools participating in the extended day, extended year initiative to 40 — 30 district schools and 10 charter schools. It’s jointly funded by the city and school district with a budget of $26.1 million for last year and the expansion.

Parker said Friday parents — especially those with busy work schedules — have told her they are “relieved and inspired by what this program has meant for them.” Superintendent Tony Watlington said there’s been some limited evidence that many of the students who have participated in the program have improved their regular classroom attendance rates.

But Parker said she’s also heard from parents who were confused or upset about her campaign-trail promise of “year-round school” and interpreted it as students sitting at a desk doing strictly academic work for 365 days a year.

“That’s not it,” Parker said.

In its first year, “extended day, extended year” schooling appeared to mostly expand access to enrichment opportunities that schools already had in place.

But Parker on Friday characterized before- and after-school care available throughout the year, as well as programming available during holiday breaks, as “access to year-round education.”

Asked if she intends for the initiative to move more towards a truly “year-round” schedule, Parker demurred.

“In my mind, this is year-round,” she said.

So far, some 3,000 students have participated in the various before and after-school programs offered at the participating schools, Chief Education Officer Debora Carrera said. Officials expect the initiative’s expansion will add 5,000 seats.

Alison Barnes, principal at Vare-Washington Elementary School in South Philadelphia that participates in the program, said it has been “nothing short of game-changing for our families.”

Jazmine Rodriguez, a Vare-Washington parent, said the after-care program her fourth-grade daughter participates in through EDEY has been a “lifeline.”

“It’s nice knowing that when I get home, homework is completed, she received the help that she needed,” Rodriguez said. “It just gives more time for family time.”

The new district schools in the program will be:

Anne Frank Elementary School.
Tanner G. Duckrey School .
Lewis Cassidy Academics Plus.
Roberto Clemente Middle School.
James R. Lowell School.
Edwin Forrest School.
Delaplaine McDaniel School.
James Rhoads Elementary School.
Edward Steel Elementary School.
Frances E. Willard Elementary School.

The new charter schools will be:

Universal Alcorn.
General David B. Birney.
Esperanza Academy.
Harambee Institute of Science and Technology.
Wissahickon.

Carly Sitrin is the bureau chief for Chalkbeat Philadelphia. Contact Carly at csitrin@chalkbeat.org.

Philadelphia’s ‘year-round school’ pilot increases access to programs schools already offered

2024-10-10T20:17:28+00:00

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Two months in, Philadelphia’s year-round school program is blossoming, officials say. But so far, the effort seems focused on giving more families access to programs that already existed, rather than revising the academic calendar.

Mayor Cherelle Parker continues to tout the program as a new vision for the city’s schools and the realization of her campaign promise. But she’s shifted her characterization of it from “year-round” school to “extended-day, extended-year” school. Across the 20 district schools and five charter schools piloting the free extended-day, extended-year program, the city and school district have doubled the number of after-school seats and created thousands of before-school seats at some schools for the first time.

Maritza Velez, a parent, grandparent, and foster caregiver of students at William Cramp Elementary School, said being part of the pilot program has allowed Cramp to open a before-care program for the first time this year.

“It’s great for parents that work,” Velez said.

But for most of the pilot schools, “year-round school” at this point mainly appears to be a new name for work that schools and nonprofit providers have been doing for years.

On Tuesday, Parker, Superintendent Tony Watlington, Chief Education Officer Debora Carrera, and other school officials toured Southwark Elementary School — one of the pilot schools. They answered kindergartners’ questions, watched fourth grade girls operate camera tripods, and chatted with other students flying drones and building with Legos.

But those programs are not new this year. They’re not even exclusive to the pilot program. The media lab is run by the public media organization WHYY, which has operated in several Philly schools for eight years. And the kindergarten class and robotics club are supported by Sunrise of Philadelphia, a nonprofit that’s been partnering with Southwark to deliver their after-school programming for more than 25 years.

Sunrise also provides free out-of-school programming to 13 other district schools — only one of which is in the pilot program.

That’s not to say educators don’t appreciate what’s going on this year. Southwark Principal Andrew Lukov said Tuesday that the pilot program has allowed the school to increase access to its after-school offerings to a larger number of families than before. Lukov called that a “big game changer.”

“Sometimes you have to tell families ‘no’ when we know that they really need these before-school services,” Lukov said. He emphasized that most of his students started their school journeys during the pandemic and are still adjusting to post-COVID education and socialization: “Our kids love being here.”

The year-round school pilot is funded by $24 million that comes from an increase in the school district’s share of property tax revenue.

A student in the after-school robotics club at Southwark Elementary School.

Parents want clearer information about extended-day programs

So far, the main function of the pilot this year appears to be expanding access.

This year, Carrera said schools have been able to nearly double the after-school seats from 1,435 last year to 2,555 this year, and add 1,400 before-school seats in 14 of the district pilot schools — the remaining six schools already open early when other schools are offering before-care.

The number of after-school seats at the five pilot charter schools has more than doubled from 228 last year to 514 this year.

The pilot schools will also be open during winter and spring break in December, January, and April, and for six weeks in the summer, but regular academic classes won’t be in session. Some 2,000 students are expected to participate in the winter and spring programming, according to the mayor’s office.

Still, that means the extended-day pilot is only serving a small fraction of the roughly 176,900 students enrolled in Philly district and charter schools.

Parents at the pilot schools told Chalkbeat they’re mostly happy with the services, but wish there was clearer communication about what exactly “year-round” school is.

“I’ve heard a little bit about it but I do feel like the communication can be improved,” Shayonna Brazelton, a Cramp parent, said. “What are the requirements? Do you have to fill out an application to sign the kids up? Is it going to be in every school, or just select schools, and then [what is] the duration? I know they’re extending the day but how many hours is it?”

Davida Smith, another Cramp parent, said she thinks year-round school is a good idea in theory, especially for older kids. Smith was in the first graduating class at Grover Washington Middle School, which tried out its own year-round school model starting in 2000 that ended after four years.

“They should start it maybe with high school because the way things are going on in the city right now, keeping high school kids in school during the summer” is a good idea, Smith said. “But for the younger ones, they’re not so much there yet. Don’t put so much on these ones yet.”

Elias Corbin, the community schools coordinator at Cramp, said parent feedback about the school’s new before-school program has been overwhelmingly positive. Participating in the pilot has also allowed Cramp to lift the cap on their preexisting after-school program from 36 seats to 60 seats. According to district data, Cramp enrolls nearly 350 students.

Corbin said the school’s biggest challenge is finding qualified people to staff the program.

Indeed, staffing has been an ongoing question since the pilot started. Watlington and Parker have been clear that no educators will be required to work outside of their contracted hours and no collective bargaining agreements will be changed without negotiations with the two relevant employee unions, the Philadelphia Federation of Teachers and Commonwealth Association of School Administrators.

Watlington said he’s meeting regularly with union leadership. “We’re talking about what this might look like in the future as we expand.”

Arthur Steinberg, president of the PFT, said how people refer to the concept— year-round school, extended-day school, community school — “matters far less” than ensuring that the programs themselves improve student achievement.

“As we proceed with negotiations for a new labor contract, we at the PFT expect to be heard and respected with regard to our members’ roles and responsibilities in expanding community schooling,” Steinberg said in an email.

But regardless of the name and the specifics, Brazelton said she welcomes the program’s intention.

“We are losing our recreational programs and things like that, so there is not as much for the children to do when they’re not in school,” she said. “I feel like anything that we can do in the city to give the kids more options so they don’t have to turn to the streets, the violence, YouTube — to put them in social environments, to be around other kids their age, and to be learning and growing together, that’s always a good idea.”

Carly Sitrin is the bureau chief for Chalkbeat Philadelphia. Contact Carly at csitrin@chalkbeat.org.

Q&A: Philly schools chief Tony Watlington addresses teacher shortage, goals for this school year

2024-08-20T11:00:01+00:00

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Tony Watlington is starting his third year as Philadelphia superintendent of schools — but he is not above going back into the classroom himself.

In discussing the district’s persistent teacher shortage, Watlington acknowledged the gravity of the situation, and that some central office administrators may find themselves deployed to classrooms this year, at least on the first day of school.

Which, he said, wouldn’t be all bad.

“If Tony Watlington showed up to teach a few social studies classes, I think they would still get some great instruction,” he said as part of a wide-ranging interview with Chalkbeat about his plans and challenges for the upcoming school year.

Watlington assumed leadership of the country’s eighth-largest school district in June 2022. He has prioritized improving academic achievement, making the district’s “customer service” — as he put it — more welcoming and helpful, and increasing the presence of district officials in neighborhoods to build partnerships with families.

There’s been notable progress on his watch. Some test scores have improved. More students attend school regularly. And the four-year high school graduation rate has increased, albeit gradually. He likes to say that Philadelphia is on its way to being “the fastest improving urban school district in the country,” citing a study from this year.

At the same time, some key high school academic indicators are stagnant or declining, and a large share of students still miss a lot of school. Perhaps most crucially, the district has been consistently unable to hire enough teachers.

Watlington noted that as of mid-August, its “fill rate” for all teacher positions is 95%, which means the district still has more than 400 vacancies. That translates to some 14,000 students lacking a permanent teacher when they return to school, a number that by itself is big enough to rank among the 10 largest districts in Pennsylvania. These issues are dominant as the district and teachers union prepare to negotiate a new contract.

Ahead of the new school year, Watlington shared his hopes and concerns for what’s ahead.

This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

Can you update us on the issue of teacher vacancies?

The reason we’re not at 100% is in part because there is a decline in the number of people who are choosing to get a teaching degree in Pennsylvania. So generally, when people ask me, have you filled all the positions, sometimes we’ll say, I think you’re asking the wrong question, because we need to make sure that we’re recruiting and hiring people who are prepared to do this job.

We’ll be deploying individuals from district headquarters to provide some help with classroom coverages as we continue to hire.

That still means that many students will start the year without a regular, long-term stable teacher.

I have a teaching license. I may have to suit up and go teach a few myself.

The biggest shortages are in science, technology, engineering, and math, foreign language, and special education teachers. Those are some of the toughest areas to fill, partly because you can make more money in the private sector. That’s why we have to pay our teachers more.

If you’re a teacher in the South or the Midwest, and you have the credentials, come on to Pennsylvania. We welcome you with open arms and not have to test and go through all these hoops. I thought it was the craziest thing when I came here as superintendent, and I had to sit for a three-hour test with a camera on, watching me the entire time.

We are investing resources and getting more of our paraprofessionals through a degree program at no cost.

The district is also starting a new English Language Arts curriculum this year. Are teachers adequately trained?

For a district of our size to launch a new curriculum in math in kindergarten through 12th grade in all district schools last year, and to then launch an English language arts and reading curriculum for the next year, is somewhat unprecedented. But it’s the right thing to do. Eighty-three percent of our teachers last year reported that they felt competent to teach the new math curriculum, but what they told us is that they needed more time.

We did a much better job this year of supporting our teachers to be able to teach the new English curriculum. And I’m really proud of our teachers, because they understand that we’ve got to make sure that poor kids who move around the city don’t have to learn different curricula. Either we are going to be a system of schools or we’re going to be one united school system.

What else are you planning to focus on this year?

Number one, we are going to focus on accelerating achievement. We’re also teaching our teachers how to engage students more effectively.

Number two, we’re going to focus on improving our customer and constituent service. We will expand the two-way communication system that I piloted in my office all last year.

The third thing we are going to focus on is building stronger partnership with our families, and we’ll do that by relocating the district assistant superintendent offices to 15 areas throughout the city, many housed in schools. If you’ve got a concern about the lunch menu, transportation, academics, or you feel like your child’s paper wasn’t graded appropriately, you’ve got one place in your community to go straight to the person who supervises those schools.

And in addition to that, we’re going to do a good job of executing Mayor Cherelle Parker’s priority for extended day, extended year pilot schools.

Could you explain a little more about how that kind of responsiveness translates into better achievement for kids?

When I give you better customer service as a parent you’re more likely to talk to the teacher, to talk to the principal, to read my communications. You’re more likely to feel like you’ve been heard, and when you feel like you’ve been heard homes and schools can work as partners in children’s learning.

We’re going to lead in improving those relationships, and we’re going to win our parents and families over because they see that we care about their children and about them.

We’ll be providing training on little things, how to say “good morning,” “thank you,” “it’s been a pleasure to work with you today.”

Tell me more about plans for extended-day and year-round school.

In year one, we have not made any changes to teachers’ or principals’ daily schedules. The before- and after-school programming is being run by outside providers, in partnership with the city and district.

Attendance data is going to be so important for us to see which parents participate and which don’t. We’ll be surveying parents about what they like, what they don’t like. We’ll also be getting feedback from the schools in terms of what’s working or not.

We know that it will be a help for kids who will not be on the streets, instead being with competent, caring adults in the early morning or late afternoons. Enrichment will be available during vacation breaks.

While you have seen some positive trends under your tenure in achievement and attendance, it is still true that only about a third of third through eighth graders are reading on grade level, and less than a fifth have grade-level math skills. Have you set improvement targets for the coming year?

We’re talking with principals and we will begin setting academic targets for the district, for each learning network and for each school, something that’s not been done in recent history to my knowledge.

Even though we were among the fastest-improving school districts post-COVID in third through eighth grade reading and math, we didn’t do well in the high schools. In the 2023 school year, in biology and Algebra 1, we actually went in the wrong direction.

We’ve got to continue to invest in third through eighth grade so that we’re sending stronger students to our high schools. We’ve got to continue to support and invest in our teachers in the high schools so that they have the best-in-class curriculum. And then we need to help our teachers to be able to fully understand the curriculum standards and how to teach them, and also how to teach kids in a way that engages kids in the learning. That’s a hard thing to do.

Violence in the city overall has been trending down, but there have been high-profile incidents like the shooting of eight Northeast High school students at a bus stop. What is the district doing to combat violence?

Attendance really does matter. Kids who come to school at least 90% of the year, and who are making sufficient progress in their academic classes, are less likely to be victims or perpetrators of violence. It’s why we’re so focused on it.

In 2022-23 in the district, just 57% of students attended school 90% of the time. Last year it went up to 60%.

Part of our underachievement is explained by: Our kids just not being in school enough. Kids learn more in brick and mortar schools with a teacher than they do on a computer. Every year that we improve, we have to say, “good job, schools,” “good job, young scholars.” Our kids need to hear more positive messages from us adults in the city, and we can do it.

Dale Mezzacappa is a senior writer for Chalkbeat Philadelphia, where she covers K-12 schools and early childhood education in Philadelphia. Contact Dale at dmezzacappa@chalkbeat.org.

Philadelphia’s year-round school initiative is more of the same — mostly

2024-06-27T19:04:59+00:00

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Philadelphia Mayor Cherelle Parker is very clear about what year-round schooling won’t be when it launches as a pilot for students in grades K-8 in 25 schools this fall.

There won’t be any changes to the academic calendar. It won’t be mandatory. Parents will not have to fill out an application. There won’t be any changes to union collective bargaining agreements or requirements for educators to teach outside of their contracted schedules. Existing before- and after-care services provided by community partners will also continue.

So what’s new about Parker’s signature education initiative? Not much, for now. But on Thursday, the district and the city did take a step forward by revealing which Philadelphia public schools will be part of the pilot.

At a City Hall press conference announcing what the mayor’s office is calling the “extended day, extended year program,” Parker, Superintendent Tony Watlington, and Chief Education Officer Debora Carrera said parents and teachers won’t see much difference during phase one of year-round school rollout which is set to begin when school starts this August.

“The first pilot year will be a learning year,” Parker said. “We want to make sure that there are no excuses: That our children in the Philadelphia school district, regardless of their socioeconomic status and what ZIP code, they get access to high-quality enrichment programs that are not traditionally offered during the school day.”

The 25 schools in the pilot — 20 traditional district schools and five charter schools — were chosen by district and city officials mostly because they are already delivering the type of substantial out-of-school-time programming, social-emotional enrichment, and academic programming that Parker said she hopes other city schools will provide in future phases of the initiative.

Crucially, those schools are among the few in the city that have air conditioning and can keep kids cool in the summer. Ten of the 25 schools are known as “community schools” that connect families with social services and some health care options.

Carrera also said the selected schools were “located in communities where children are at high risk of involvement in the child welfare or juvenile justice system.”

One notable change that will affect parents and others: The pilot school buildings will remain open between 7:30 a.m. and 6 p.m five days a week, even on half-day schedules. They will offer optional “specialized enrichment” before and after the traditional school day, as well as during the winter, spring, and summer break periods. (Some of the pilot schools were already staffing their buildings in some capacity during breaks.)

Parker’s announcement about the pilot, which was preempted by a Philadelphia Inquirer report this week, led to some backlash. Some surprised parents and teachers took to social media to express their disappointment that the news leaked early before parents and others involved in the pilot schools heard directly from officials.

Carrera said Thursday that the first year of the initiative will involve gathering feedback from parents, teachers, and students to continue to tweak and improve on the model.

“This is about deepening enrichment opportunities as we build, as we listen, and as we work,” Carrera said.

The total cost for year-round schooling, and how to staff it, continue to be areas of uncertainty for Parker’s plans.

The Philadelphia Board of Education will vote Thursday evening on a $20 million contract with the Boys & Girls Club, Girl Scouts of America, Sunrise of Philadelphia, Philadelphia Youth Network, and others to run out-of-school-time programs at the 25 pilot schools. The schools have been using federal COVID relief money to fund their before- and after-care programs, which are mostly operated by community partners and nonprofit organizations.

But that relief money will expire this year, jeopardizing the programs’ future.

The $20 million would keep those programs in place as part of the year-round school initiative. The city’s newly approved budget for next year also includes an increase in the school district’s share of property tax revenue that could help pay for the initiative. The district’s state funding could also increase soon..

Parker was also adamant on Thursday that no educators would be forced to participate and no union contracts would be violated by her proposal. But an ongoing teacher shortage in the district raises questions about who will be providing these academic enrichment opportunities outside of school hours.

Asked how these programs would be staffed if not by certified Philadelphia teachers through their contracts, Parker demurred. She said teachers who “want to participate” could do so.

“We are working very closely with our unions,” Watlington said.

Arthur Steinberg, the president-elect of the Philadelphia Federation of Teachers, said in a statement Thursday that it is “accurate that the pilot program will not affect contractual obligations in the coming school year. However, any new [district] program that could potentially require changes to the school calendar must be negotiated. Our members await and expect more detailed information about the pilot and potential implications for the next negotiated contract.”

The 20 traditional district schools in the pilot are:

Add B. Anderson Elementary
Carnell Elementary
Cramp Elementary
Farrell Elementary
F.S. Edmonds Elementary
Gideon Elementary
Gompers Elementary
Greenberg Elementary
G.W. Childs Elementary
Juniata Park Academy
Locke Elementary
Morton Elementary
Overbrook Educational Center
T.M. Peirce Elementary
Pennell Elementary
Solis-Cohen Elementary
Southwark Elementary
Vare-Washington Elementary
Webster Elementary
Richard Wright Elementary

The five charter schools in the pilot are:

Belmont Charter School, which already operates its own year-round program.
Northwood Charter School
Pan American Charter School
Mastery Pickett (in grades 6-8 only)
Universal Creighton Charter School

Carly Sitrin is the bureau chief for Chalkbeat Philadelphia. Contact Carly at csitrin@chalkbeat.org.

The Philadelphia mayor’s plan for year-round school is taking shape. What will it look like?

2024-05-06T11:00:00+00:00

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A plan to put in place Mayor Cherelle Parker’s promise to lengthen the school day and year — her signature education proposal — is taking shape.

But what that will look like in practice is still very much in flux.

Last week, Superintendent Tony Watlington told the City Council during an education budget hearing that a “beefed up” extended-day program will start in September in an unspecified number of schools, mostly consisting of “fun and engaging” after-school activities. In the 2025-26 school year, the district plans to offer a year-round schedule in up to 20 pilot schools, he said.

The first step of implementing Parker’s vision is adding programs and offerings this summer. But changing school districts’ traditional calendars to fully adopt year-round school is a different animal. It has typically meant shortening summer vacation and adding four week-long breaks during the school year. That shift, if it ever occurs, will not begin for well over a year, based on Watlington’s timeline.

It is very rare for year-round school to actually add instructional days. And the strategic plan adopted by the district last year cast doubt on the power of reallocating school days to improve academic achievement.

Putting in place an extended schedule — as opposed to offering more robust summer options — will need buy-in from the district’s unions, parents and other stakeholders, including agencies that now provide after-school and summer programming.

Cost has also not been discussed, though Watlington said he is seeking philanthropic help. And there are practical considerations linked to expanding programming at any particular school, such as whether it’s air-conditioned. Most city schools are not. (Eagles quarterback Jalen Hurts just donated $200,000 to install air conditioners in 10 schools.)

“We have to create a demand and build partnerships,” Watlington told the council.

Watlington has mentioned the Harlem Children’s Zone in New York City as one model he’s studied. Its Promise Academy charter schools’ schedules run from September through July, with week-long breaks in October, December, April, and June. The schools don’t have a longer day, but do have extensive after-school activities, and they also offer after-school and summer enrichment programs for students in New York City district-run schools within the zone.

During her campaign, when she discussed her reasons for supporting year-round school, Parker emphasized the benefits and flexibility it would provide to parents more than the potential academic benefits for students. But she didn’t clarify exactly what she had in mind.

Since taking office in January, she has changed how she talks about the issue. She now describes her vision as giving more educational opportunities to the city’s children outside regular school hours while keeping them safe.

“School is the safest place they’ll be … Ward and June Cleaver, the Cosbys, is not the reality our children are living in,” Parker said last month at an education conference, referring to the bygone popular television shows “Leave it to Beaver” and “The Cosby Show,” which presented ideals of American family life.

Philadelphia has previously tried one model of year-round school — albeit on a very small scale. In 2000, Grover Washington Middle School in Kensington operated on a shorter summer vacation with longer breaks during the year.

The goal was to reverse the effects of “summer slide,” or the decline in students’ achievement levels after the long summer break. But just four years later, the district’s then-CEO Paul Vallas ended the program, saying that its negligible academic benefits didn’t justify continuing it.

Here’s what to know about Parker’s push for year-round schooling and how it compares to other cities’ initiatives:

What’s new — and returning — for students this summer?

Both the city and the district already have extensive summer programming.

But the Summer Achievers program, which will be new this summer, could be especially significant. That’s because the 20 schools that could eventually participate in the 2025-26 pilot for year-round school will likely be drawn from the 62 schools where Summer Achievers programs will take place.

In Summer Achievers, in the mornings, students will receive instruction from district teachers in English Language Arts and math, while the afternoons and Friday will include camp-like activities and field trips. The program will also feature music, art, and sports, as well as social-emotional learning. The district is calling it a “school meets camp” experience.

This idea isn’t entirely new. A version of such a program was offered by the district starting in the summer of 2021, as schools began reopening after COVID.

Summer Achievers will be held between June 25 and Aug. 2. (For the program’s final week, the camp activities will take up full days and there will be no academic instruction.) While children in Summer Achievers will receive breakfast and lunch, families will be responsible for transportation.

The list of providers include the Greater Philadelphia YMCA, the University of Pennsylvania, Catholic Charities of the Archdiocese of Philadelphia, and Sunrise Philadelphia. Summer Achievers is based on pilot programs held over the past three summers, funded in part by the William Penn Foundation. (Chalkbeat receives funding from the William Penn Foundation.)

A statement from the Office of Children and Families described Summer Achievers as “a model for what summer programming can look like … in a full-day, year-round program moving forward.”

Another new program for this summer is called “Young Entrepreneurs” and is for rising ninth graders. It will run from June 25 to July 25, and will focus on developing business skills as well as providing instruction in English Language Arts and math.

The school district already offers a considerable array of summer programming for young people between the ages of 5 and 18. They range from a two-day-a-week virtual program for students entering kindergarten to month-long courses for high schoolers to make up credits for courses they failed.

Several emphasize particular skills and interests, including music – there’s an option to join a summer orchestra and a summer drumline.

Others are focused on particular populations, including a longstanding “extended school year” program for students with disabilities to shore up their skills and a “newcomer academy” for English learners.

The city recreation department runs camps around the city, and the Office of Children and Families oversees nearly 100 programs run by Boys’ and Girls’ clubs and other organizations called “It’s a Summer Thing!”

In addition, Deputy Mayor for Children and Families Vanessa Garrett-Hartley said the city is planning to provide up to 8,000 summer employment opportunities and career exploration activities for young people ages 12 and up.

It’s “work based learning, internships, job shadowing,” Garrett-Hartley said.

What will year-round school mean for teachers?

Teachers remain wary of what officials might ultimately come up with, a sentiment rooted in last year’s mayoral race.

Jerry Jordan, president of the Philadelphia Federation of Teachers, said in an interview that Parker never discussed her proposal for year-round school with the union before making it a centerpiece of her campaign.

Without having more details, he said, his members have expressed concerns about how it may affect their jobs and schedules.

Some are also parents, he noted, “and if they have to work during the summer, this will totally impact their families and they don’t want to do that.”

In Philadelphia, the Belmont charter school network has its own extended-year program. Teachers in the network who sign up to teach over the summer get a few weeks off between the end of the regular academic year and the start of summer programming. They also get two weeks off before going back to Belmont in the fall.

But if parents have children in different schools on different schedules, year-round school could present more of a problem than a help.

All teacher participation in summer programs are voluntary; it is unclear what will happen if school schedules are changed. In the meantime, Jordan is praising the addition of enrichment activities and field trips to students over the summer, because many city children never have the opportunity to visit attractions like the Franklin Institute or the Constitution Center.

“All of this is going on around them and they are just not aware of it, and parents don’t have the funds to take them to museums, they can be costly for one child much less for three or four,” Jordan said.

What are the next steps for year-round school?

The logistics are daunting and the cost considerable. But one city councilmember said that after asking Watlington about it during budget hearings, she thinks the district is moving too slowly on the initiative.

“It wasn’t as well thought out as I thought it would be,” said Cindy Bass, who represents the 8th District in Northwest Philadelphia.”It’s hopeful, aspirational, not concrete.”

“This is the mayor’s directive. I was expecting more substantive detail,” Bass added.

Parker has separately proposed giving the school district a larger share of the city property tax, increasing its share from 55% to 56%, which she said would raise $129 million over five years. Bass said that money should be used for year-round schooling.

The school district already spends $42 million on summer and after-school programming, although COVID aid that helped pay for it is about to expire

Sharon Ward, the deputy chief education officer, said city, district, and other officials are meeting to hash out the details for this summer and for the future.

Echoing Parker’s comments from last year’s mayoral campaign, she noted that parents want more safety and enriching programs for their kids that are “more aligned with their work hours.”

Ward also said that “additional academic enrichment” will be a part of whatever’s developed, and that the city will learn from the activities already available to students.

“We’re working on it. We’re not starting from scratch,” Ward said.

Dale Mezzacappa is a senior writer for Chalkbeat Philadelphia, where she covers K-12 schools and early childhood education in Philadelphia. Contact Dale at dmezzacappa@chalkbeat.org.

Philadelphia’s inaugural drumline exposition let students share a ‘beautiful masterpiece’

2023-05-05T20:45:22+00:00

When Jesse Mell first proposed putting a drumline program in every Philadelphia public school, he said people laughed at him.

An important milestone to that goal would be getting every student drumline group in the city on one stage for a performance. Resources were limited and it would take an enormous amount of time, organization, and patience.

But Thursday night at the inaugural citywide Drumlines Exposition, the beat of more than 100 student drummers from over 20 schools carried out of the Philadelphia High School for Girls auditorium and echoed in the SEPTA station across the street.

For Mell, coordinator of the drumline programs in the Philadelphia school district, it was an impossible dream realized. Philadelphia public schools have been clawing their way back from a “doomsday” budget in the 2013-14 school year that saw funding for the district’s arts department slashed, leaving many schools with only one art or music teacher if they were lucky.

Nonprofit organizations like Musicopia, a co-host of the expo event and where Mell previously worked as a contractor, stepped in offering a free after-school percussion program open to students in grades 3-12. This year, for the first time, drumline will be offered as a summer program for students in grades 6-12.

“When I joined the district, I just saw kids just not being treated with respect and … that makes me want to fight for them,” said Mell, who is also the former artistic director of drumlines at Musicopia. “Even in those difficult situations [when we] were under-resourced, with a lot of violence in the neighborhood, a lot of conflict in the schools, a lot of racism going on in the schools … I could show up, and we could be okay in our little space.”

For the students, the performance was a point of pride and the promise of a career.

Sixteen-year-old Paris Parretta said drumming is more than just noise to him: “It’s my life.” He hopes it will earn him a spot in the drumline at Michigan State University. The West Philadelphia High School student said being able to make music and being able to play it “and have this outlet to push myself further in my career, it means everything to me.”

Parretta’s favorite part of the night? Playing alongside a city icon.

“Seeing West Philly Elmo was a great experience,” Parretta said.

Philly Elmo, a Philadelphia icon, walks down the aisle during the Drumlines Exposition.

Mell said drumline is different from traditional band and orchestra programs because it provides an easy access point for students — especially Black students in neighborhood schools starved of resources — who may not have had the opportunity to take up an instrument early in their school experience.

“I think that the pandemic taught us a lot. It taught us that … we needed to look beyond the traditional band and orchestra program to provide ensembles [and] access for anybody at any point,” Mell said.

In each small drum ensemble, Mell said, there are three parts that a student can play that are level one, level two, or level three; level three is the hardest.

Drumming is also more accessible to non-musicians who can learn to play music without needing to understand notation, Mell said. “Bass drummers can just vocalize their part and move to a steady beat and therefore internalize it. They don’t need to be able to read sheet music to participate.”

Gabriela Delvalle, a 15-year-old Edison High School student, said for her, drumline is about feeling, rhythm, and timing.

“Music in general makes me feel so happy. It’s the way that everyone syncs and coordinates and it makes a beautiful masterpiece,” she said.

Mell said the students at the expo event represented a small portion of the “probably 1,000” marching percussionists in the Philadelphia public school system. He said it’s his mission to grow the drumline program into “something that can be viable in every school.”

But with the ongoing pressures of significant funding needs, school closures due to asbestos, and gun violence, Mell said giving time, space and resources for arts education — especially drumline — is crucial.

Joel Gomez, 14, a student at The City School, a private Christian school, said drumline has given him an outlet to play with students from across Philadelphia and the discipline of regular practice.

“It’s like speaking a language from your drum,” Gomez said. “It’s literally speaking. When you do your solos you’ve really gotta put yourself out there and stand out from other people.”

Correction: May 8, 2023: A previous version of this story misstated Mell’s goal for the district: He proposed putting a drumline program in every Philadelphia public school.

This story has also been updated to clarify Mell’s employment status at Musicopia.

Carly Sitrin is the bureau chief for Chalkbeat Philadelphia. Contact Carly at csitrin@chalkbeat.org.

Philadelphia outlines school safety plan in response to escalating violence

2022-08-22T21:38:55+00:00

Philadelphia city and school officials Monday sought to reassure the public that children will be safe during the next school year by outlining new programs and policies designed to monitor and prevent threats in schools and neighborhoods.

Police presence around schools will increase at arrival and dismissal times, and there will be a “safe paths” program in which neighborhood residents patrol the areas around eight high schools. And the district’s “threat assessment” team will expand, as will the number of safety officers in schools.

District officials will also be able to monitor 100 security cameras that the city is installing near schools in high-crime neighborhoods.

The variety of efforts to make students safer come as gun violence has escalated in the city and fears about school safety persist in the wake of the school shooting earlier this year in Uvalde, Texas. Officials provided several details about what the new and ongoing security measures do and don’t mean for schools and communities, but also said broader factors involving shootings and the illegal possession of firearms around schools make the environment for students and staff more difficult.

Philadelphia experienced a record number of homicides in Philadelphia in 2021, and is nearly on pace to match that number so far in 2022. And between September 2021 and July 22 of this year, roughly equivalent to the previous school year, 119 young people under 22 were killed by gun violence and 304 were wounded, said Kevin Bethel, the district’s chief of school safety and a former Philadelphia deputy police commissioner.

Of the 119 killed, 47 were actively enrolled in district or charter schools; 36 of the 47 were 18 years old or younger.

The number of guns around schools and gun crime affecting schools have both increased, said Bethel, who added that the district previously thought gun crime as a safety concern would be less of an issue for schools post-COVID than behavioral problems.

“I do want to constantly emphasize that schools remain the safest place for our students and we are committed to providing a safe, secure and supportive learning environment for all of our students,” he said.

The first day of school is Aug. 29.

Seventeen guns were found in and around schools in the 2021-22 school year; before the pandemic, in a typical school year, just a couple were recovered annually. While metal detectors will remain in all city high schools, a program that started last school year to randomly check for weapons in schools with seventh and eighth grades will not be in place when the school year begins.

Bethel also said that this year, the district is hiring 26 more safety officers so that 52 schools that had part-time officers will now have full-time coverage. These officers work for the district and aren’t connected to the city police force.

The district’s school safety officers will continue not to carry weapons, but they will be supported by Philadelphia police as students arrive and leave schools.

“We firmly believe [we have] the best trained school safety officers in the country,” Bethel said.

The district is also adding two mental health professionals to its central “threat assessment” team. This team assists school-based personnel when students threaten others or say they will harm themselves. Last year, Bethel said, the team responded to 225 such incidents.

Outside of school buildings this year, 45 people from the Institute for the Development of African American Youth will be trained to patrol the areas around the following high schools: Northeast, Lincoln, Roxborough, Sayre, West Philadelphia, Motivation, Edison, and Bartram.

The program is modeled on one in Chicago that pays people and has had some success. Chicago Public Schools is spending $22 million on its Safe Passage program for the 2022-23 school year. Philadelphia, a significantly smaller city than Chicago, has so far allotted $250,000 a year to its own program for two years.

In addition to that, there will be enhanced and more visible police patrols during school arrivals and dismissals, said Police Commissioner Danielle Outlaw, who added that these will “not come at the expense of routine patrols.”

Meanwhile, the plan to install 100 new security cameras, which officials announced in June, “is one part of a critical effort to ensure the epidemic of gun violence does not impact children or interfere with their learning, development or well-being,” Mayor Jim Kenney said at Monday’s press conference.

Deputy Mayor Vanessa Garrett Harley, who is in charge of the city’s Office of Children and Families, highlighted after-school offerings available to young people, and said these activities are also key to reducing violence.

She said there are 129 “out of school time” programs with 6,400 spaces and another 2,500 in activities run by Parks and Recreation. There are also programs available in many neighborhoods through Philadelphia public library branches, she said. Activities in these programs range from chess and coding to sports and dance.

“These are safe and enriching spaces for children to go after school,” she said.

Dale Mezzacappa is a senior writer for Chalkbeat Philadelphia, where she covers K-12 schools and early childhood education in Philadelphia. Contact Dale at dmezzacappa@chalkbeat.org.

Linking Philly girls of color to coding though dance reflects national trend

2022-07-05T17:55:49+00:00

Women and people of color are under-represented in science, technology, engineering, and math. But there’s an effort afoot in Philadelphia to change that through an unusual mix of dance and coding lessons.

DanceLogic, which is run by the West Park Cultural Center, is “designed to educate, inspire, and cultivate girls of color in STEM,” said Betty Lindley, the founder and executive director. Lindley started the program in 2018, teaming up with Franklyn Athias, a Comcast engineer, to offer basic coding lessons along with dance on Saturdays.

The premise: Both coding and dance use repetition and combination, so using dance as a hook to attract girls to the program could lead to an interest in coding. Proponents say programs like danceLogic and others around the country are win-win, motivating kids to enter promising fields, while also diversifying and adding to the STEM workforce pipeline. And programs that get kids interested in STEM when they are relatively young can be especially successful.

Dance, Lindley said, is “a hook” to open girls’ minds to exploring something new. “There are not that many females in technology, especially coding,” she said. “There are career opportunities that girls just aren’t aware of or don’t even think about exploring.”

Recent research bears out Lindley’s point. A 2021 National Science Foundation report found that women made up just 34% of the workforce in the four professional fields collectively known as STEM. Meanwhile, Blacks, Hispanics, and Native Americans collectively accounted for just 23%.

Those low percentages persist “because we’ve allowed them to persist,” said Dia Jones, executive director of the STEM Educational Institute, a nonprofit group that provides technology programs for high school students in under-represented areas.

Programs like danceLogic, Black Girls Do STEM, and the Ujima GIRL program at the University of California-Davis are a way of making inroads by reaching girls of color before they get to high school, she said.

DanceLogic students range from 12 to 18 years old. Most girls in the program participate at no cost, Lindley said. The program is funded through grants and individual donations.

Each Saturday, the girls participate in dance class from noon to 1:20 p.m., take a short break, and then go into coding class until 2:30 p.m. Sessions run from October through June, culminating with a performance at the annual West Park Arts Fest.

“Much of our dance class is centered around composition and choreography,” both of which use languages and techniques to build narratives and projects, said Cameron Bridgers, a danceLogic dance instructor who applied to teach at the program after receiving her dance degree from Temple University.

Students complete a coding exercise during the study portion of the danceLogic program in West Philadelphia.

For example, she said, the class developed a dance score using coding language to note choreography. “In the future, I hope to expand on this with the girls and see how it progresses with their understanding of both worlds,” she said.

Bridgers said that initially, she wasn’t sure what the connection was between dance and computer programming. She soon found that both are “methods of creation,” she said.

Many educators are designing STEM-focused programs for middle schoolers and younger children who might not otherwise think they can succeed in these technical fields. Reaching those students when they’re in the early grades is often crucial, and can help counter issues like a shortage of Black and brown teachers and other systemic factors.

“If you can get them early enough, when they’re talking about, ‘I want to work for NASA, I want to be an engineer or a gamer or a doctor’ — if you get them early enough, you can say, ‘You can do this,’” said Jones, who has worked with Philadelphia schools for many years. “If you have that representation, that interest, that support early, students are more likely to continue with their STEM journeys,” she said.

Helping others is also a theme at danceLogic.

Students have shown an eagerness to take charge of the choreography and exchange ideas about what the dances should be. Bridgers said she’s seen many of the girls who participate develop into strong leaders and mentors. “We make a space for these young women to expand their agency and autonomy in the field of STEM,” she said.

One danceLogic student even developed her own coding curriculum and taught younger children in her neighborhood library, said Lindley. DanceLogic also hired the student when the pandemic forced a switch to virtual learning, charging her with designing and implementing a virtual video-game design class for children, Lindley said.

One other benefit: The girls in danceLogic say the program has helped them with their math studies, Lindley said.

‘I honestly didn’t know what STEM was’

The University of Maryland, Baltimore’s CURE Scholars is another program that aims to fill and diversify the STEM pipeline by reaching out to under-represented students early in their educational journeys.

CURE pairs middle-school students from West Baltimore with mentors, guiding them year-round through high school with tutoring, hands-on activities, and opportunities to see researchers in action. The first cohort of scholars started in 2015 and graduated high school this spring. They’re headed for colleges that include prominent HBCUs such as Howard University and Spelman College.

Ayishat Yussuf is one of them. In the fall she’ll attend Spelman, where she plans to major in biology with the goal of becoming a pediatrician and health advocate.

When she applied to the program in 5th grade, “I honestly didn’t know what STEM was,” she told Chalkbeat. “I had the feeling it was health-related, but I wasn’t aware of all it consists of.”

Yussuf said giving back to the community is important to her, as she appreciates all the CURE program gave her. The program, she said, inspired her to make sure her career aspirations will make a positive impact, she said. “Coming from West Baltimore, there aren’t that many opportunities,” she said.

Jones’ group, the STEM Educational Institute, is a one-week summer program for 9th to 12th graders aimed at helping them prepare for STEM majors in college and careers in STEM fields. In addition to creating a diverse talent pipeline, the program is focused on how students can build generational wealth, she said.

Students learn from professionals “who look like them” about the mechanics of coding, but also broader life lessons, such as how to survive college, she said.

“I was raised to reach back” and help others,” Jones said. “There are things someone helped me with, so I’m absolutely going to help others and give [them] the opportunities I had — and a lot of opportunities I didn’t have,” she said.

Two Philly fathers aim to hook students on reading early

2022-06-17T20:25:13+00:00

Brent Johnstone and Akeiff Staples met at Temple University, where they were both on the football team. Each went on to a career in social work, where they would cross paths from time to time. But as they put it, something else was “meant to be.”

Five years ago, the two started a Philadelphia program to help fathers returning from prison re-engage with their kids through reading. They had seen firsthand how a lack of male role models, combined with frustration stemming from an inability to read, could lead to poverty, violence, substance abuse, and worse.

“You can almost guarantee a positive impact in a child’s life by just reading to your child,” Johnstone told Chalkbeat. “And that’s only at an average of 20 minutes a night.”

Johnstone and Staples decided “to attack early literacy through the vision of fathers engaging” with their kids, Johnstone said. They committed to work full-time for their new venture, FathersRead365, even though they had no funding commitments at the time.

Before long, the project expanded. Staples and Johnstone began holding fun, high-energy reading events for kids in daycare centers, inviting adults — particularly fathers — to join in. FathersRead365 is now in about 150 centers and has received almost $400,000 in funding to date. It’s also given away 100,000 books to Philadelphia schoolchildren.

“One of the main reasons we do this is we just don’t feel like people realize how important children not knowing how to read past a third-grade reading level is, and how that impacts crime and violence,” Johnstone said. A study found that just 33% of Philadelphia third graders were proficient in reading, he noted.

That’s important because “no one’s teaching your kid to read after third grade,” he said. So if children aren’t reading on grade level by then, “there’s a great chance they won’t be on level the rest of their lives.”

When the pandemic hit and in-person events were not an option, the team decided to focus on book distribution. It discovered major discrepancies in the availability of reading materials among kids in different neighborhoods, Johnstone said.

Through their FathersRead365 initiative, Akeiff Staples, left, and Brent Johnstone drive home the importance of reading and parents being involved in their child’s schoolwork.

He pointed to a study from 2001 that found there were about 300 children for every book available in a high-poverty section of Philadelphia, while each child in a middle-class neighborhood had access to about 13 age-appropriate books.

That figure gave the two the idea of putting 13 books in a bookbag and distributing the bundles to kids at their schools. FathersRead365 partnered with 14 city schools and the William Penn Foundation to put together and distribute the parcels. This past school year, they gave 13 books and a bookbag to each of roughly 1,000 students.

“When the pandemic set in, our whole model kind of shut down, because we’re interactive, in your face, inviting a ton of people to engage in these activities,” Johnstone said. “It made us pivot, and it’s probably one of the best things that could have happened to us.”

They have also raised money for a “Book Bus” that will travel to schools and distribute books, he said.

A visit from FathersRead365 helped jump-start the “Lions Roar for Reading” program at T.M. Peirce Elementary School, said Assistant Principal Austin Wallace Jr. “Their program fit perfectly with what I was trying to bring to our school in terms of having male representation in the classrooms to expose students to literature,” he told Chalkbeat.

“Young males aren’t exposed to male voices reading to them, or male figures in front of them reading,” Wallace continued. “We wanted to expose the young men to that,” particularly in the lower grades when “foundational skills are solidified,” he said.

Wallace had drafted every male staff member working at Peirce, from principal to custodian, to spend 10 to 15 minutes each Friday reading to a class within the pre-K-3 range. When Staples and Johnstone came in as part of that effort, “that was pretty much what solidified the program as a recurring thing,” Wallace said.

“I look forward to working with FathersRead for as long as they’re willing to work with me,” said Wallace, who in the fall will be principal of Delaplaine McDaniel, a K-8 school, in South Philadelphia.

Johnstone and Staples have plans to expand, though it takes work. They’re building their YouTube channel so kids can remain engaged, and hope to be able to board the “Book Bus” and distribute those gifts of 13 books and a bookbag around the country.

And the art of fundraising, Staples said, is something they’re learning about constantly.

“When it comes to fundraising for Black-led nonprofit organizations, it can be tough,” he said. “You have to run through hoops.”

Staples and Johnstone connected with their group’s first funder, the William Penn Foundation, at a 2018 literacy event. “Akeiff and I were really into our program, with absolutely no funding in sight. We just went up there and were ourselves and had a heck of a time,” Johnstone recalled. A William Penn program officer reached out to them after the event, and “from there, the relationship has grown,” Johnstone said.

Philadelphia School Board member Reginald Streater said efforts like FathersRead365 are much appreciated.

“As we know, often the first teacher or information leader is a child’s parent,” Streater told Chalkbeat. “Parents are already partners,” he said, but “some parents just don’t know how to be the partners that the school district needs.”

Chalkbeat Philadelphia Bureau Chief Johann Calhoun contributed reporting.

After years and amid protest, Board of Ed revokes two ASPIRA charters

2019-10-18T03:47:53+00:00

This article was originally published in The Notebook. In August 2020, The Notebook became Chalkbeat Philadelphia.

The Board of Education voted Thursday to revoke the charters of two long-embattled charter schools, while renewing the charter of a third on the condition that it entirely revamp its special education programming and enrollment.

The board also approved over a billion dollars in new financing, including what officials say was the largest new loan in over a decade, laying the groundwork for what it hopes will be three years of major infrastructure upgrades.

The board’s 8-1 votes to revoke the nonprofit ASPIRA’s charters for Olney High and Stetson Middle School followed a long session of passionate testimony from the schools’ parents, students, and staff.

“You can keep a great school open by giving us more time,” said Olney staffer Dan LaSalle. “Give us a chance.”

ASPIRA’s financial controller Xin Li told the board that the nonprofit’s books are in considerably better shape than in years past.

“I have witnessed striking improvements in internal controls,” he said. “The schools have turned around.”

And parent Doris Thayer warned that removing ASPIRA would bring back the bad old days of fights, truancy, and general disorder. “If you take them out, you’re going to regret it,” she said. “Olney is going to go back to the way it used to be.”

Several board members expressed great reluctance to close a program that has drawn praise for improving school climate and boosting enrollment.

“I’m extremely conflicted,” said Mallory Fix Lopez, the only board member to vote to leave the schools in ASPIRA’s control. “I keep going back to this idea of what is in the best interest of the kids. … Having taught in that area, before Stetson was a Renaissance school, I know exactly what is being talked about.”

Several other board members expressed similar reservations. But member Christopher McGinley responded with a stern warning: Leaving the schools open in the face of overwhelming evidence of poor performance, he said, would undermine the credibility of the entire charter oversight process.

“We approve the charter office, we approve their policies,” McGinley said, urging the board to accept the conclusions of the lengthy non-renewal hearings, which documented extensive academic and financial problems. “Two different teams three years apart came and said, ‘Don’t renew this charter. It’s not fiscally responsible.’ … If we ignore that, I don’t know how we’d say no to any charter in the future.”

Board President Joyce Wilkerson was more blunt: Climate improvements aren’t enough to offset consistently low test scores and dicey finances.

“This isn’t a hard decision for me. I value the cultural aspects of these schools … but without the academic achievement, I think we’re cheating our children moving forward,” Wilkerson said. “This school is not getting it done. … It’s time that we turn the corner on this.”

Added Board Vice President Wayne Walker: “When I see the [non-renewal hearing] officer’s report and the fiscal misconduct and the low academic scores, I have no choice.”

The vote to revoke the charters will likely trigger a lengthy appeal, which District officials say could last up to two years. In the meantime, Superintendent William Hite said, the District will launch a transition process of its own, with community meetings about programming and a recruitment push to keep existing staff.

Hite said he wouldn’t rule out a role for ASPIRA in the future of the school.

“If there are ways to continue to work with ASPIRA as a contracting group to provide some services, we would be looking particularly to continue things done around climate and ELL [English-language learning],” he said.

But staff members worry that the ongoing uncertainty about the schools’ fate will be disruptive no matter what the outcome.

“We’re losing teachers each year due to the renewal process,” said Stetson teacher Elizabeth Cesarini. “We’ll probably lose more after tonight.”

Special master for Math, Civics & Sciences charter

The board approved a new charter for a third school, Mathematics, Civics & Sciences Charter School (MCSCS), but added an unusual condition designed to address its persistently low rates of special education students and English-language learners.

The charter for MCSCS includes a call for a “special master” who will oversee a “complete overhaul” of the school’s special education programming, said Christina Grant, interim head of the Charter Schools Office. The special master will be chosen by the District, but paid by the school, Grant said.

If the school doesn’t follow the special master’s requirements, the terms of the new agreement allow the District to move quickly to revoke its charter, Grant said, instead of waiting for the end of its five-year term.

“Failure to follow that policy would allow the CSO to present to the board a case for non-renewal that’s outside the renewal process,” she said.

The school brought no staff or supporters to speak on its behalf. However, the board heard testimony from attorney Paige Joki of the Education Law Center, who filed a lawsuit Thursday on behalf of a parent who says her child was denied admission because of her special education status.

MCSCS has far fewer special education students than similar District and charter schools, said Joki – between 3 and 6 percent of its enrollment over the last three years, she said, compared to as much as 18 percent in comparable District schools.

“This difference is striking,” she said, adding that “during this time period, MCS has served no English-language learners.”

The new agreement includes 19 conditions for the charter, Grant said: five in academic areas and the remaining 14 in financial and organizational issues. She did not detail the nature of the conditions. Unlike the provision involving the special master, the only penalty for failing to meet the other requirements is a recommendation of non-renewal when MCSCS reaches the end of its five-year term.

Board President Wilkerson noted that such conditions have proven relatively toothless in the past.

“We, from time to time, have conditions, and five years later, they have not been met. … It renders the whole condition process essentially meaningless,” she said.

However, the addition of the special master was enough to secure a renewal from an otherwise uncertain board, by an 8-1 vote. Julia Danzy voted “yes … with ambivalence.” McGinley noted that his “yes” came “only because we have the clause about putting in a special master to ensure that students receive the services they’re entitled to.” Lee Huang echoed the point: “The inclusion of the special master was an important piece.”

New financing for capital upgrades

The board approved what officials say is about $1.1 billion of new financing, including what finance chief Uri Monson called the District’s largest loan “since the Paul Vallas years.”

The new finances are expected to help fund a three-year surge of infrastructure upgrades across the District, said Hite, including new roofs, electrical work, and lead and asbestos remediation. An issue of “green bonds” will support energy-efficiency projects.

The District will also use some of the funds to hire new project managers, including consultants and new District staff, in part to ensure that the District sees no repeats of the Ben Franklin High/Science Leadership Academy fiasco that displaced 1,000 students after construction work dislodged asbestos in the building.

About half of the new financing comes in the form of new bonds, along with savings from restructuring existing obligations. But the District also secured a loan of $500 million at “the lowest rate we’ve had in years,” said Monson, due in large part to the District’s rising credit rating.

“This is the first time we’ve been above junk bond status since 1977,” Monson said.

The move to borrow, said board member Huang, was driven by both need and opportunity. “The combination of our higher credit rating, low rates in the marketplace, and lots of projects that capital dollars could be used for,” encouraged the District to do “a significant amount of borrowing.”

The new dollars, a combination of loans and bond issues, “allows us to take an approach that other large municipalities have done,” said Hite, which is to seek “a firm to manage the projects. … We would also use a portion of this to expand our internal capacity.”

Funds from much of the new bond issue are required to be spent within three years, said Hite. He hopes to have a construction management firm in place by December, but notes that a lesson of the Ben Franklin/SLA incident is that building up his own administration’s capacity is “extremely important” as well.

Monson said that the fact that the new financing can be used to build staff capacity is critical; a burst of new projects will bring a host of new administrative demands, and 440 will have to be ready to handle them.

“The point is spending money wisely,” Monson said. “Unfortunately it’s become a bragging point how thin our administration is – but it’s too thin.”

School Planning Review

Hite provided a brief update on the District’s newly launched Comprehensive School Planning Review (CSPR), a strategic planning process designed to assess changing neighborhood demographics, and reorganize catchment boundaries, feeder patterns, and academic and capital investments.

“We want families in the city to want to attend their public schools, so we’re excited to begin this work,” said Hite.

The planning review will initially focus on parts of South, West and North Philadelphia, looking at school capacity and “how our population and communities are projected to change over time.”

“We want to look at our facilities and how they’re utilized,” said Hite. “We don’t just want to talk about [District] facilities, but about assets that are around the city … that could enhance programming at schools.”

The District has begun to create advisory committees of community members, said Hite, and seeks to open the doors as widely as possible. Principals are already recruiting members on their own, but anyone is welcome to take part, he said, adding that information on joining committees is available on the District website.

“We want as many people as possible to participate,” Hite said, adding that the recommendations of those committees and District staff will ultimately help the District direct capital dollars.

The multi-year process will take a close look at the facilities and capacity of District-run neighborhood schools, with an eye toward ensuring that every neighborhood has a solid K-12 feeder network, along with access to pre-K and an “equitable” share of resources and programs. The CSPR process won’t look closely at the capacity of magnet and special-admission schools, said Hite, because their enrollment isn’t catchment-driven.

It will, however, look at the enrollment patterns of particular communities to see which sorts of special-admission programs attract a given neighborhood’s students.

Hite’s team has sent conflicting messages about the role of magnets and special-admits in the CSPR process in recent weeks, and tonight’s statements were the first definitive answer on the subject. Board member Fix Lopez noted that this confusion should serve as a warning to Hite to make sure his communication practices stay up to the task.

“This is a question that’s been asked multiple times in multiple months,” she said. “There’s been misinformation around this, and that’s concerning.”

Board of Education set to vote on three charter renewals

2019-10-17T17:09:44+00:00

This article was originally published in The Notebook. In August 2020, The Notebook became Chalkbeat Philadelphia.

Thursday’s meeting of the Board of Education will feature renewal votes for three struggling charter schools, but how much impact the board’s decisions will have on those schools is unclear.

Two of the charters up for non-renewal are for Stetson Middle School and Olney High, which are run by the nonprofit ASPIRA of North Philadelphia. The board is likely to vote to revoke those embattled schools’ charters, which would mark the second time the District’s governing body has tried to end ASPIRA’s management at the two converted District schools.

But because of Pennsylvania’s lengthy charter appeals process and an ongoing lawsuit, the schools are not likely to close anytime soon.

A third charter, Mathematics, Civics & Sciences Charter School (MCSCS), appears poised for renewal after lengthy negotiations with the Charter Schools Office produced an agreement that it finds acceptable. District officials say they have a list of conditions for the new charter, but a recent Pennsylvania Charter Appeal Board decision may render such conditions unenforceable.

Long battle with ASPIRA

The vote on ASPIRA’s two Renaissance charters, Olney and Stetson, will be the latest salvo in the five-year battle between the nonprofit and the District.

ASPIRA was among the District’s first charter operators, and it became part of the Renaissance school turnaround program under Superintendent Arlene Ackerman. Through this program, the charter organizations agreed to run neighborhood schools, open to all catchment residents, in hopes of improving them dramatically.

But ASPIRA has been dogged for years by allegations of financial improprieties and poor academic performance. As early as 2014, the District told the operator it was on “thin ice,” and in the years that followed, numerous reports alleged a variety of financial misdeeds, including the practice of improperly shuffling cash among its various schools and the parent nonprofit.

In late 2017, the now-defunct School Reform Commission voted to revoke Stetson and Olney’s charters. A 2018 state audit blasted the nonprofit, alleging that it was operating a sprawling financial enterprise without meaningful oversight, cutting corners on administration, and turning what were supposed to be independent schools into cogs of the larger ASPIRA machine.

“Aspira Inc. is clearly calling all the financial shots at all five charter schools, without any input or oversight from the schools themselves,” said Auditor General Eugene DePasquale at the time. “This is not how charter schools are supposed to function under the current Charter School Law.”

The subsequent hearings for Stetson and Olney – required by law in the wake of the non-renewal vote – documented a long list of problems. Olney’s hearing cited “low proficiency rates on Keystone exams, poor School Performance Profile scores, failure to meet academic growth standards, failure to meet Annual Measureable Objectives, poor graduation rates, poor federal accountability designations, [and] failure to meet commitments in its charter.”

Stetson’s hearing noted that the school has “good reason to be proud of the substantial climate improvements it has made in the last nine years, but these improvements have not resulted in the ‘dramatic gains in student achievement’ that were expected,” wrote hearing officer Rudolph Garcia.

ASPIRA officials have consistently denied any wrongdoing over the years, while also promising to improve on financials and academics. The nonprofit has filed a lawsuit against the District, arguing that the “interminably long” renewal process is unfair and has hurt its finances. Its students and staff routinely appear at school board meetings to argue that their schools are caring and effective and that revoking the charters would undo the good ASPIRA has done.

“If [Olney] becomes public … there will be more fights and violence,” one student told the Board of Education in June.

If the board votes to revoke the ASPIRA charters, the schools won’t close anytime soon, because the charter-friendly appeal process can take years. As long as the schools are open, the District is committed to spending a total of about $40 million on them annually. Last year Stetson’s allotment was about $13 million for about 900 students, and Olney’s was about $27 million for almost 1,800 students.

If the charters are revoked, the two schools will revert to District management, which would be unprecedented in the history of the Renaissance program.

Unknown conditions for MCSCS

The third vote involves MCSCS, a K-12 charter of about 1,000 students that was founded by former District staffer Veronica Joyner. If the charter is renewed and enrollment stays about the same, the school will receive about $10 million a year for the next five years.

MCSCS has struggled academically. District assessments show it falling short among comparable District schools and charters in most academic and administrative areas. Its charter expired in 2018, and the school has been negotiating for its renewal ever since.

District officials say they’ve settled on a renewal plan which will include a host of “school-specific” conditions.

What those conditions are and how they could be enforced remains unknown. District officials say they will share details of the 19 conditions immediately before the board’s vote.

“The Charter Schools Office will make a presentation on the proposed charter renewal, including all 19 conditions, at the Action Meeting on Thursday,” said District spokesperson Imahni Moise.

That’s a common District practice that has long frustrated some observers, including Lisa Haver of the Alliance for Philadelphia Public Schools (APPS). By keeping the details of renewal plans confidential until moments before the board votes on them, Haver said, the District prevents the public from weighing in on the specifics of a given school’s recovery plan.

“They vote in secret, even though they are sitting in the room, because the public does not know exactly what they are voting on,” said Haver.

District officials, when asked why the details of MCSCS’s renewal can’t be released sooner, say that the law requires that they keep “active” negotiations confidential.

“We are not able to release the terms as this is a quasi-judicial matter … currently actively being negotiated,” said Moise.

However, Moise did not offer an explanation for what prevents the District from sharing terms once a charter renewal negotiation is complete. Thursday’s agenda suggests that that is the case with MCSCS, noting that “the CSO has negotiated a five-year renewal, effective July 1, 2018, with 19 school-specific conditions.”

Deborah Klehr of the Education Law Center said that by keeping renewal conditions under wraps until just before key votes, allowing the public to scrutinize charters’ plans to correct known deficiencies.

“We are concerned about inequitable practices among charter schools, ranging from illegal refusal to enroll students with disabilities to failure to serve English learners,” said Klehr in a statement. “The school board authorizes charters in Philadelphia and is right to consider these factors in setting conditions for renewal. We encourage the school board to share this information about conditions so that the public has an opportunity to weigh in fully on charter renewals prior to a school board vote.”

However, any discussion of conditions may have been rendered moot by a recent decision at the state’s Charter Appeals Board involving a different charter operator, Franklin Towne Charter Schools.

Franklin Towne has had troubles of its own, involving both academics and administration, and District officials sought to modify the charter for its new 450-student middle school. However, Franklin Towne successfully defeated the District’s effort by invoking Pennsylvania charter law, arguing that the District lacks the authority to add conditions that “materially” tinker with the school’s charter.

A complete ruling from the appeals board is still forthcoming, but the possibility remains that the District’s ability to enforce conditions – already limited – will be further curtailed. That would be good news to many charter supporters who feel that the District has “kind of weaponized the whole condition thing,” as David Hardy of Excellent Schools PA recently put it.

In other charter-related news, Thursday’s board meeting will also include a vote on a $60,000 contract for a private firm that will assist in reviewing new charter applications, ensuring that they all get “a thorough and timely review.” SchoolWorksLLC, which specializes in curriculum review and “generalist evaluation,” will work under the direction of Charter School Office staff, potentially filling gaps left by some recent departures.

“The CSO will use this support in addition to their team’s review,” said Moise. “The CSO lost three staff members and are in the process of filling those roles.”

At Mighty Writers forum, office holders and students share stories of gun violence and seek action

2019-10-01T01:30:56+00:00

This article was originally published in The Notebook. In August 2020, The Notebook became Chalkbeat Philadelphia.

Local high school students expressed their fear, sadness, and frustration Friday at a meeting with state and local officials, where they shared gruesome stories of gun violence and the subsequent trauma felt by individuals and communities in Philadelphia.

The afterschool program Mighty Writers hosted the anti-violence forum at the Friends Center in Center City because “almost every young person we work with has been affected by violence in an immediate way,” said Shanise Redmon, Mighty Writers program manager. “We believe in uplifting our student voices at all costs.”

The purpose of Mighty Writers is to help students express themselves through writing to better understand and cope with circumstances in their lives.

Redmon has felt the impact of violence personally. Her uncle was murdered when she was 11 years old, and her cousin was murdered when she was in high school.

Shamsa Belgrave, a student who attends Mighty Writers, asked, “Where in Philadelphia can I feel safe?”

State Rep. Movita Johnson-Harrell, a Philadelphia Democrat, responded: “To be totally honest, I don’t know if there is a way to stay safe. That is just the reality that we live in. People get killed driving down the street. We can’t go to church, we can’t go to mosque, synagogue, we can’t go to school, the movies, we can’t go to a show. Gun violence is everywhere.”

Johnson-Harrell, a West Philadelphia native, said that her father, brother, and son were all murdered. “I was diagnosed with PTSD at 10 years old,” she said.

Johnson-Harrell’s commentary was especially powerful. She captured the full attention of everyone in the room as she described the traumatic experiences she had been through. After losing her son to gun violence in 2013, she started the nonprofit CHARLES Foundation in his name to advocate for gu- violence prevention.

The students at the forum said afterward that her story made a particular impact on them.

“I think it was very powerful,” said Bintou Fofana, a senior at Upper Merion Area High School. “When you are speaking from the heart, it sounds like poetry. It shows that they really care and that they are really here to make a difference.”

During the forum, one young woman broke into tears, saying, “I work with kids in the summertime, and there was this one predicament where they were playing basketball and they started fighting. And I got in there and told them to chill, and one of them was like ‘Yo, if I had a gun, I would kill you.’ This is the normality of the situation.

“I love these kids so much, and I don’t want to see them die.”

Holding her cousin in her arms and speaking to the panel from her seat in the audience, another young woman, Shanice Taylor, said of her cousin, “She is the face of a child who has to grow up without a father. Her father was murdered when she was only 15 months.”

Taylor and her family members are trying to start a community center called Last Jab, which they hope will be a place where people can receive free counseling.

Others shared their heartbreaking stories as well (some of their full stories are recounted below).

Celestine Adjaglo, a 14-year-old student with Mighty Writers, said she had witnessed a shooting.

“I can barely go to my local corner store without seeing teddy bears and candles on the ground,” she said, referring to memorials that spring up on-site to commemorate slain family and friends.

The students and officials discussed the impact of gun violence and how people “self-medicate” with drugs and alcohol as a way to cope with the trauma of witnessing family members brutally murdered in front of them.

Philadelphia City Council member Curtis Jones was walking with a young girl one day when she was shot and killed. He was only 16 at the time. “I was in my 10th grade of high school, and I medicated myself through the rest of the year,” Jones said.

‘They don’t care about black kids dying in the streets’

Johnson-Hurrell said that her brother self-medicated after he saw his father dying. “He was never properly diagnosed, never properly treated, self-medicated with drugs and alcohol. Wound up in and out of adult correctional facilities, and then was murdered over a girl.”

She said that our children are growing up in “active war zones,” causing internal, unseen damage.

The students demanded that the leaders work for solutions. Fofana challenged the lawmakers: “How many more people have to die before you step up?”

State Rep. Donna Bullock, a Philadelphia Democrat, talked about some of the difficulties facing gun reformers. Partisan politics is among them, she said, as she described a visit to rural Pennsylvania to try to form connections with her legislative colleagues.

Bullock said the representative whose home she was visiting holds a gun in the pictures on her campaign handouts. “That is how she wins votes in her district. Guns are that important in her community. … They don’t understand or see the human impact of the way that gun violence impacts our community.”

Johnson-Harrell spoke more bluntly about the resistance in Harrisburg to gun control, saying: “The reality is that a lot of people up there do not care about our community. They don’t care about black kids dying on the streets.”

One way to reach across the aisle, she suggested, is by talking about the issues affecting rural communities and highlighting their commonalities.

“While [the Republicans] may not care about black kids in urban communities dying in the streets, they care about middle-aged white men in urban communities dying by suicide. So we need to change the conversation,” she said. Suicide accounts for two-thirds of gun deaths in the country as a whole.

The legislative leaders mentioned actions they have taken to counteract gun violence. City Council member Jones has introduced legislation that would allow law enforcement to confiscate someone’s gun after they have made a threat to someone else’s life.

“In those declarations, we should be able to serve out a warrant to a judge to temporarily remove those firearms from that known resident,” he said. “You have the right to bear arms, but you do not have the right to terrorize others.”

Curtis also mentioned a program he has been involved in called the Rock the Block Porch-Poppin program. This program, he said, teaches young men and women carpentry skills and pays them a stipend to fix porches in their communities. This gives the participants valuable professional skills and money, and it removes blight from communities. He also said that they are working with the Philadelphia Housing Authority to repair houses in their “scatter site inventory” and then put them into a lease-to-own program. The point of all of this is to help mitigate the underlying causes of violence, including job loss, poverty, blight, isolation, and hopelessness.

Johnson-Harrell, with help from Gov. Wolf, has been working on starting a gun violence research center. She thinks society needs to better understand what the underlying causes of gun violence are and also what the indicators, or “social determinants” are, which can be used to identify people who are most likely to become violent. She said that in the case of her son being killed, the homicide detectives told her “while Charles is a pure victim, these boys were going to murder somebody. We knew it. We had him in and out of juvenile and prison. One of them used to kill cats.”

Johnson-Harrell said with frustration, “That is the situation right now with our children. We don’t educate them, we don’t house them, we don’t feed them, they have parents on drugs, they have nobody to look up to, we don’t give them jobs. What do we expect!?”

Notably, around the country, many programs like the one of which she speaks have been successful. Community policing in Chicago, for example, reduced violent crimes there by nearly 50% from 1991 to 2002 during the course of the Chicago Alternative Policing Strategy program. In Boston, Operation Ceasefire, also known as the Boston Miracle, reduced youth homicides by 63% by involving community groups, including church leaders, who listened to the people causing trouble on the streets at night and saw them as partners in the fight against violence, according to Jefferey Brown, one of the church leaders involved in the program.

The homicide rate in Philadelphia has been decreasing fairly steadily since the 1980s, according to data from city-data.com, but it is still placed in the 94th percentile among U.S. cities, according to the site.

After the event, one of the panelists – Adé Fuqua, the former chief of staff at the Office of the Managing Director of Philadelphia – said he hoped the event would restore students’ faith that public officials are trying to address problems, like deep poverty, that breed gun violence.

Beyond that, he said, “This is not a racial thing; this is not an old-young thing. If you are in an area where violence has taken over, you are not even able to … engage your neighbors. We cannot let violence imprison our communities.”

Individual stories

Here are three stories that were told during the forum:

Shanise Redmon is the Mighty Writers South program manager. She said: “My uncle was murdered when I was 11, a few blocks from Mighty Writers, where I work, so I go past the location all the time. My cousin was murdered when I was in high school around the corner from my house, so I see it every day. I lost my best friend while I was in college because he committed murder. And during high school, I contracted kidney disease and I didn’t know where it came from. There is no history of it in my family and I was getting into a lot of trouble during my senior year. I had to go to anger management and all of those things.”

Council member Curtis Jones was one of the local officials on the guest panel. He said: “When I was 16 years old, I was going to a party. I was coming from the bus stop and a person came out of a driveway, shot and killed the young lady I was with. That is not something I read in a book or watched in a movie. That is something I live with. I was in my 10th grade of high school and I medicated myself through the rest of the year. Self-medicated, if you know what I mean [with drugs and alcohol], because I was guilty feeling that I could have done something different to keep her alive.”

After he was elected, he said, “I was called because a young child who was with his father got shot by accident at Tustin Recreation. I go to the rec center and I am doing my thing in my official capacity and I look in the crowd. I saw the twin of the young lady I [had been] with. She seemed just like a ghost, and we were reliving it. We said, ‘This is generational.’ Here we go again, living this over and over again.”

State Rep. Movita Johnson-Harrell, who was also on the guest panel, said: “On Easter Sunday 1975, my father was murdered in front of my family. I was 8 years old. In July 1991, I lost my only brother. He was stabbed in the throat over a girl, and his 5-year-old son watched him bleed out on the floor. On Jan 13, 2011, after leaving Philadelphia to protect my children from gun violence, my 18-year-old son, Charles Andre Johnson, came to Philadelphia to pick up his sister to make sure she was safe, and two boys had a beef over a girl the day before and they thought my son was the boy coming back to retaliate and they put four bullets in my son. My son didn’t even know these people. So one conversation that we need to be having — that we do not have often enough — is that we talk about what is happening external to us, but we do not talk about the internal injuries that are going on with our young people, the stuff that you cannot see: us living in these communities and our children seeing dead bodies in the street and then they are expected to go to school.

I was diagnosed with PTSD at 10 years old. I then began to develop endocrine problems and I spent my childhood in [Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia] and they could not find out what was wrong with me. What was wrong with me was trauma. I internalized seeing my father gasping and gurgling his own blood because he was shot in the chest with a double-barrel shotgun. In that moment I lost my mother and my father and my only brother because my brother then became mentally ill, had behavioral problems, wound up in juvenile. You all know this story. I’m not unique. He was never properly diagnosed, never properly treated, self-medicated with drugs and alcohol. Wound up in and out of adult correctional facilities, and then was murdered over a girl.”

Marciene Mattleman, ‘a force of nature, an immovable object, an irresistible force,’ dies at 89

2019-03-31T19:47:07+00:00

This article was originally published in The Notebook. In August 2020, The Notebook became Chalkbeat Philadelphia.

Marciene Mattleman had a philosophy: If you care enough about something to complain about it, then you should care enough to do something about it.

And she did.

Throughout her long career in Philadelphia as an educator and social entrepreneur, she focused her attention on big-picture problems that needed solving: the need to address the functional illiteracy of more than a quarter of Philadelphia adults. The need for children to be safe and productively occupied during after-school hours. The need to help low-income, first-generation students gain admission to college and persist once they were there.

So she thought up and founded Philadelphia READS, After School Activities Partnerships (ASAP), Philadelphia Futures, and Youth Education for Tomorrow.

Mattleman, who had Parkinson’s disease, died Friday at age 89.

“Marciene had the strongest bias for action of anybody I’ve ever met,” said Ralph Smith. He first met her in 1982 when her husband, Herman, was president of the Board of Education and Smith was chief of staff to Superintendent Constance Clayton. “There wasn’t a single problem about which she complained or cared about that she did not figure out how to take some action around it. In many respects, that made her seem peripatetic, but that was the animating principle on which she worked.”

She was legendary for never taking no for an answer.

“She was a force of nature, an immovable object, an irresistible force,” said Smith, who now heads the national Campaign for Grade-Level Reading.

In 2015, when her health was just beginning to fail, three Philadelphia mayors were among the more than 100 people who came to honor her when she retired as chair of the board of ASAP.

The current mayor at the time, Michael Nutter, gave her a citation from the city that noted, among other things, that she “started more service programs than any other person in the city’s history.”

He also spoke wryly but affectionately about the “immovable object” part of her character.

“My general policy is whatever Marciene is calling about, just say yes and save a half-hour,” said Nutter.

Former Mayor Ed Rendell told his favorite Mattleman story – not coincidentally, one that struck the same tone as Nutter’s.

Roughly, it went this way: She would call on a Monday with her latest big idea. The mayor would politely say “no” and gently hang up.

But that was not the end of it. She would keep calling.

“By Thursday, I realized that you should never say no to Marciene Mattleman,” said Rendell, who called her both “impossible” and “truly an angel.”

When former Mayor Wilson Goode was in office, he started the Mayor’s Commission on Literacy at Mattleman’s instigation. She became its first executive director. At the 2015 tribute, Goode called her “one of the most unselfish, dedicated public servants I’ve known.”

Adult literacy was an issue close to his heart; Goode’s father, a farmer in the South before moving here, could not read or write. At the time, it was estimated that 40 percent of Philadelphia adults struggled to read.

“I did not know that I would find the perfect person who would be the director and take it beyond all my wildest expectations,” Goode said. “I did not need to give her instructions; she had a different idea every day, sometimes two, or three, or five. No other mayor in the country had a literacy program anywhere near what we had here.”

Joseph Torsella, now the state treasurer, is a protege of the Mattlemans, first meeting them when he was still a student at the University of Pennsylvania and they were all working on Goode’s campaign. He said at the 2015 event: “She is one person who, through sheer force of will, can change an entire city.”

He said he learned from Marciene “the power of relentless compassion.”

Philadelphia Futures and its flagship program, Sponsor-A-Scholar, grew from the inspiration of Eugene Lang and George Weiss, wealthy philanthropists who, in the 1980s, each offered free college educations to a randomly chosen group of low-income students. Their programs – and one later founded by city educator Ruth Wright Hayre – also offered the students tutoring, mentoring, and generalized support as they pursued their college dreams.

Mattleman reasoned that people who couldn’t afford such generosity could nevertheless contribute either smaller amounts of money or their time as mentors or tutors to help individual students. Sponsor-A-Scholar has helped more than 1,000 students since 1989.

Last June, although she was using a wheelchair and finding it difficult to talk, she honored the Notebook by attending our annual fundraiser, which was held at the National Museum of American Jewish History.

On learning of her death, civic activists posted tributes on Facebook. David Fair, a longtime advocate and former city official who is now an executive at Turning Points for Children, wrote that she made “the future brighter for generations of Philadelphia children and tirelessly focused on creating opportunities to help young people succeed.” Her work lives on through the organizations that she founded “and through the inspiration, her life of service to the betterment of the community will continue to provide to new generations of children’s advocates,” he wrote.

Born and raised in Wynnefield, and educated at Temple, Mattleman said in a 1993 profile that her businessman father and homemaker mother set an example for her.

“They found causes they thought were important,” she said. “They were not people necessarily who were well-schooled, but they knew what was important in life. … I got that sense of giving back.”

That profile was written when she was being awarded the MCP/Gimbel Philadelphia Award, one of the city’s most prestigious honors, given annually to a woman in the region and occasionally to a national figure. Begun in 1932 by the founder of the Gimbels department stores, other recipients have included Eleanor Roosevelt and Sandra Day O’Connor.

In 2008, she won the Philadelphia Award, the highest civic honor the city bestows, for her work in creating “successful, innovative programs to help inner-city students compete academically.”

Mattleman started out as a 6xth-grade teacher and raised three children while completing her Ph.D. in education at Temple, where she then taught for many years. In addition to her husband, to whom she was married for more than 68 years, she is survived by daughters Barbara Kaplan and Ellen Kaplan, who is the city’s chief integrity officer; son, Jon; six grandchildren; and four great-grandchildren.

Donations in her memory can be made to the Marciene Mattleman Founder’s Fund at After School Activities Partnerships, 1520 Locust St., Suite 1104, Philadelphia 19102, or to a charity of the donor’s choice.

State Rep. Roebuck calls for accountability in charter schools’ real estate deals

2018-05-30T18:23:26+00:00

This article was originally published in The Notebook. In August 2020, The Notebook became Chalkbeat Philadelphia.

State Rep. James Roebuck renewed his push this week for legislation that would bar charter school companies from leasing buildings that they already own back to themselves, collecting state dollars in the process. This comes shortly after Franklin Towne Charter School faced criticism from the School Reform Commission over conflicts of interest in similar real estate arrangements and the state’s audit of Aspira charter schools found the practice there as well.

The legislation was first introduced last year. Roebuck (D-Phila.) said the audit proved his long-standing assertion that Pennsylvania’s charter school law needs to be reformed.

“The findings by Auditor General Eugene DePasquale mirror what I’ve been saying all along, that charter schools lack financial accountability,” said Roebuck, the Democratic chairman of the House Education Committee. “The legislation I introduced last year would specifically address the core problems found in this report while protecting taxpayer dollars.”

Roebuck’s bill, HB 1199, would eliminate conflicts of interest in tax-funded payments for charter school leases through the state’s program, which is meant to help charter schools who rent the school building, but is often used by charters who already own the building.

In the case of Franklin Towne, the CEO, Joseph Venditti, took the building bought by Franklin Town High School using bonds and leased it to a company called Franklin Towne Holdings that was created by Venditti, who made himself CEO of that company. Venditti then used the holding company to sub-lease the building back to the high school, which paid the holding company rent while collecting state reimbursements for part of those rent payments.

Franklin Towne was first found to be engaging in this practice in a 2010 report from the city controller, which found that 10 of the 13 charter schools it examined in Philly used similar practices between the school and landlord.

That’s a rate of 77 percent, though the sample size is quite small.

In 2015, the state’s auditor general found these practices at 10 charter schools around the state, which collected a total of $2.5 million in state tax dollars as a result.

Roebuck’s bill is part of a bigger charter reform legislative package from many House Democrats aimed at creating a system of equal treatment for all Pennsylvania public schools — both traditional and charter — and their students.

Roebuck has also introduced legislation, HB 578, that would initiate a comprehensive study to evaluate the successes and failures of charter schools throughout the state over the last 20 years, since the charter law was created.

“We need to see what’s working and what’s not, because at the end of the day, it’s the children and taxpayers who are being reprimanded for these avoidable mistakes,” Roebuck said. “It is abundantly clear in the auditor general’s audit that charter school management groups like Aspira are not working. It’s past time for a comprehensive overhaul of Pennsylvania’s nearly 21-year-old law.”

DePasquale issues critical audit of Aspira Inc. and its charter schools

2018-05-23T21:13:13+00:00

This article was originally published in The Notebook. In August 2020, The Notebook became Chalkbeat Philadelphia.

Auditor General Eugene DePasquale issued a highly critical audit of Aspira Inc. charter schools on Wednesday, finding a ballooning debt, poor or nonexistent documentation of financial transactions, repeated violations of the Sunshine Act, money that is unaccounted for, and other irregularities.

The Latino community organization manages five schools, including a cyber school, that enroll more than 4,000 students. Two, Olney High and Stetson Middle, are former District schools. The operating agreements for three of those schools have expired – two in 2015 and one in 2016 – and the remaining two are set to expire at the end of next month.

The School Reform Commission voted in December 2017 to begin the process of nonrenewal for Olney’s and Stetson’s charters, but the schools remain open. Hearings that are required before a final vote can be taken have not been scheduled, and the schools’ ultimate fate is almost certain to be decided by the new Board of Education, which will be seated July 1.

The cyber school is authorized by the Pennsylvania Department of Education, and although its charter expired in 2015, its renewal has not been acted on.

Attorney Ken Trujillo, who has been representing the organization, said that many of the issues raised by DePasquale had been addressed since 2016.

“Many of the recommendations … had already been put in place,” he said. “Many of them we agreed would be positive for the organization.”

He noted that DePasquale “made no findings of criminalities, misuse of funds, no finding of anything that impacts [the organization’s] integrity or the positive impact of the schools.”

DePasquale found that the individual schools’ boards had essentially ceded their governance responsibility to the management company. Over three years, the company managed $150 million in taxpayer money, but none of the individual charters had their own CEO or business manager overseeing expenditures.

Aspira’s fund balance plummeted from $7.7 million in 2014 to a deficit of $419,000 in 2016. In fiscal years 2014, 2015 and 2016, four of the five schools ran deficit budgets, overspending $5.3 million.

And although their overall revenue declined in those years due to smaller per-student reimbursement amounts dictated by the charter school law, its annual management fees nearly doubled, from $7 million in 2015 to $13 million in 2016.

Trujillo said the management costs were primarily to pay the salaries of the schools’ support staff, including maintenance and cafeteria workers, who work for Aspira and not the individual schools.

The audit found that “poor organizational structure, weak management agreements, and lack of board oversight allowed Aspira Inc. to control all schools’ revenues and expenditures – including payments to itself – with little documentation to support charges to the schools.”

The auditor also could find no paper trail or board authorization for a payment to a former administrator of $210,000. It was likely the result of a lawsuit filed by the administrator, who said she was terminated for supporting a sexual harassment complaint by one of her subordinates against Aspira CEO Alfredo Calderon, who remains the executive director.

Trujillo said that the payment was made by Aspira’s insurance company and that there was “no expenditure of public funds.”

DePasquale’s issue “was that the payment was not approved in a public session,” Trujillo said. “I think it should have been voted on in a public session.”

In 2015, Aspira Inc. changed its structure to make top administrators employees of the management company instead of the individual schools, the audit said, making it “impossible to determine whether public funds are being used to pay senior administrators or other employees of the management to settle lawsuits.”

Aspira Inc. also used anticipated revenues and its assets – its buildings – to secure its debt, but then didn’t pay down the debt, DePasquale found. And the individual schools, in their required financial statements, did not disclose the buildings’ use as collateral. Aspira Inc. owns the buildings and leases them to the individual schools, but didn’t use the lease payments to pay down the debt, the audit said.

In its formal responses to the auditor general’s findings, Aspira Inc. acknowledged “the School Boards can do a better job of documenting transactions.”

As for the ballooning debt, Aspira Inc. attributes it primarily to “the decline in funding levels for public education.”

“In the case of Aspira Inc., the total control of finances and lack of accountability can best be described as the fox guarding the henhouse,” DePasquale said in a press release. “When management companies operate with little to no oversight, the potential is escalated for fraud, waste, and abuse of the public funds intended for students in the schools they manage. At no time should administrators or other staff employed by the private management company approve their own company’s invoices and transactions.”

Trujillo said that the organization’s financial picture has “dramatically improved” in the last two years, to the point where it will “have the ability to refinance that debt and remove any obligation on the schools.”

The “fox in the henhouse” characterization “is an offensive picture to paint in people’s minds when at the same time he is saying that Aspira did nothing that violated the law.”

DePasquale said that the audit “once again sadly illustrates the desperate need to change Pennsylvania’s charter school law, which is the worst in the nation.”

Afterschool program supports African-born immigrant students

2018-04-23T11:41:00+00:00

This article was originally published in The Notebook. In August 2020, The Notebook became Chalkbeat Philadelphia.

While many people might view remodeling a basement as an opportunity to build a new TV room, extra bedroom or home office, Aminata Sy had a different vision for her West Philadelphia home.

She wanted to create a space to help African-born immigrants in Philadelphia — 7 percent of the city’s immigrant population — so she turned it into an after-school program for African students struggling in English-speaking schools.

Sy, who was born in the Democratic Republic of Congo, majors in international relations and minors in English at the University of Pennsylvania.

“I was thinking on a personal level how can I give back,” Sy said, “because I want my education to not just be something that I am learning and is in my brain. For me, that is useless. For me, education has to be something that is shared.”

Sy and her husband transformed their basement laundry room into the African Community Learning Program, where she and seven volunteers — students from Penn and Temple — help a dozen struggling students with their homework, language skills and cultural pride.

In her “Africa Curriculum,” Sy teaches students about the cultures and people from the continent. For example, during February, Black History Month, Sy had students make presentations about important living people who have a direct link to Africa. The subjects included Barack Obama, Trevor Noah and even Sy herself.

Another aspect of the curriculum: She and the volunteers switch roles, so the students can teach them. The students — from countries such as Senegal, Mali, Nigeria, Niger, Burkina Faso, Sudan and Mauritania — deliver insights into their own cultures while the adults sit back and learn.

“That’s just the center of the program, just trying to give them a sense of self. Tell them that their experiences matter. Their values matter and their stories matter,” said Hazim Hardeman, the program’s volunteer secretary and also the first Rhodes Scholar who graduated from Temple University.

Though it has no official connection with the School District of Philadelphia, the African Community Learning Program offers extra support for African English language students, especially those who speak languages that are not very familiar to people in the United States.

About 850 African students live in the District, 596 of them English learners. The District has 57 bilingual counseling assistants, nine of whom provide support for African languages, Arabic, French, Wolof, Soninke, Pular and Fulani.

There’s also Language Line, a District service that offers live translations for parents and families in any language, and the District works closely with organizations such as the African Family and Health Organization, Sudanese Organization of Philadelphia, and AFRICOM.

But even with all that, African students still need one-on-one assistance.

In addition to the language barrier, African students can’t get the help they need at home because their parents may not have gone to school, or were educated in a system that doesn’t transfer to American school systems, Sy said.

That’s why Sy serves only students whose parents are originally from Africa, for now at least. She stressed that she’s not trying to exclude other students, but to serve “a need that is not being addressed,” one that she herself is very familiar with. When she arrived in the U.S. in 2001, she had to “relearn how to live in a new context.”

“They’re also learning to adapt to American culture,” Sy said. “So I thought it would be best to start with where I understand best myself.”

Adama Maiga, a fifth-grader at Henry C. Lea Elementary, the neighborhood school, said she used to get C’s on her report card because she couldn’t understand the work and her mother, Assantou Diarra, who came to the U.S. from Mali in 2005, was unable to help her.

Lea was one of the first places Sy promoted the after-school African Community Learning Program, since the school has a sizable contingent of African students. Adama’s mother found out about Sy’s program through the school’s bilingual counseling assistant and enrolled her daughter.

Adama said she now gets strictly A’s and B’s and praised Sy for helping her with her homework and making it “more funner.”

“I feel like when I didn’t come here I didn’t know anything,” she said “I was dumb and stupid. But since I’m coming here, I feel like I am smart, intelligent, generous and stuff like that.”

Diarra intends to keep Adama in the program.

“If she feels happy, I feel happy,” she said.

SRC votes not to renew Olney and Stetson charters

2017-12-14T21:21:00+00:00

This article was originally published in The Notebook. In August 2020, The Notebook became Chalkbeat Philadelphia.

Nearly two years after receiving initial recommendations, the School Reform Commission voted Thursday night not to renew two Renaissance charters – Olney High and Stetson Middle Schools – both run by Aspira Inc.

The SRC also voted to revoke the charter of Khepera Charter School, a North Philadelphia elementary school plagued by financial and academic woes.

The SRC voted 4-1 not to renew Olney and Stetson, with Commissioner Farah Jimenez casting the lone no votes. All five commissioners voted to revoke Khepera’s charter.

Olney and Stetson used to be District schools before they were taken over by Aspira as part of the Renaissance schools initiative. This model ceded chronically low-performing, often out-of-control District-run schools to outside organizations in the hope of quick, dramatic turnarounds.

In April 2016, the SRC’s Charter Schools Office (CSO) first recommended non-renewal for Olney and Stetson. Though the CSO identified some academic gains at the Renaissance schools, reviewers also uncovered a litany of financial and organizational flaws. The office found that Aspira had used its state and local per-pupil education subsidy to guarantee loans for other arms of the organization, including money earmarked for buildings that the schools did not use.

At Thursday’s SRC meeting, Rudolph Garcia, the officer who reviewed Olney and Stetson’s renewal cases, said Khepera had violated at least 11 laws.

After the vote, SRC Chair Joyce Wilkerson said District officials should rethink the Renaissance model.

“It’s a conversation we ought to have,” she said.

Wilkerson continued: “There’s value that a lot of these institutions are providing. A lot of them, though, their expertise is not in education. So you look at these schools and you think maybe the charter school model is not the right model. It was the vehicle that was available to people, but it’s necessarily the right model going forward.”

One problem, Wilkerson said, is that the charter school law does not allow for any kind of “collaboration” between charter schools and the District, which she hinted might be a better solution to the problems with Olney and Stetson. Completely reverting to District leadership and a total exit of Aspira would mean starting over from scratch with new faculty and staff.

Wilkerson conceded that she does not know what the right model would be.

DawnLynne Kacer, head of the District’s Charter Schools Office, said that since the original nonrenewal recommendation, the financial health of Aspira and the two schools has become more precarious. The updated reports on Olney and Stetson show that Aspira is struggling to pay off loans and using its per-pupil payments from the state as collateral, while heavily increasing the amount assigned to each school’s budget for “administrative expenses.”

Administrative costs, described as being for maintenance, security, and information technology, at Olney more than doubled from Fiscal Year 2015 to Fiscal Year 2017 – from $2.7 million in FY 2015, to $4.5 million in FY 2016, to $6.1 million in FY 2017. That is on a budget of about $26 million for 1,800 students.

At Stetson, these costs nearly tripled, from $1.1 million to more than $3 million on a budget of around $11 million for 900 students. And that doesn’t include charter management fees, which were $931,582 in FY 2017 for Olney and $428,476 for Stetson.

Aspira is using the per-pupil revenue it gets from the state and the city for both schools to guarantee more than $15 million in loans to Aspira Community Enterprises Inc. This is mostly for its purchase and maintenance of the former Cardinal Dougherty High School building, which the organization uses to house other charter schools and some community services. Most of these loans are “in forbearance,” meaning payments have been temporarily suspended by the lender, PNC Bank. Aspira is seeking short-term bridge loans so they can resume paying off these loans.

In testimony before the vote, several teachers, parents, and students from the two schools described vastly improved climates and an array of supports for the students, including a large contingent of English language learners at Olney.

Kacer’s report emphasized the financial and operational shortcomings of Aspira’s management and found that their academic performance, while not outstanding, was not enough reason alone to shut the schools down.

Olney principal James Thompson said that the District uses an unfair measure to judge its academic success, comparing it to some special admission schools instead of other neighborhood schools in its area, including Frankford and Edison. He asked what would happen to the students if they were forced to go elsewhere.

“We are the best option for students we serve,” he said, urging SRC members to visit and see for themselves.

Commissioner Bill Green told Thompson that he agreed Olney was its students’ best option. Citing the high administrative overhead, he said, imagine “what you could do with 28 percent more money in your budget.” Green told Thompson that he and the staff should split with Aspira and lead “the first principal- and teacher-led turnaround” in the District.

The District has not named any new Renaissance schools the last two years and it said it has been conducting a comprehensive review of the Renaissance initiative for more than a year. District officials said Thursday night that the review is still ongoing.

Meanwhile, the District has tinkered with other turnaround strategies, such as contract schools. In that model, the District hires an outside provider to run the school, but still employs the school staff and retains tighter control over its operations.

Two other Renaissance charters run by Universal Companies in Southwest Philadelphia, Vare Middle and Audenried High Schools, were also first recommended for non-renewal in April 2016. No action was taken on them, but Wilkerson said she expected votes on their fates to come up in January or February 2018.

Sources had said that there was not yet consensus among the five SRC members about what should be done with those schools, which were also cited primarily for organizational and financial irregularities in the Charter Schools’ Office’s non-renewal recommendations.

All four schools – the two run by Universal and the two run by Aspira – have waited in limbo since the SRC first attempted to vote on their fates in April and May of 2016. The commission couldn’t muster the votes necessary to decide in either direction. For part of that time, the SRC did not have a full complement of five members.

The case of the Aspira schools was further clouded by the involvement of attorney and former mayoral candidate Ken Trujillo, who took on an advisory role with the organization in an effort to stave off the schools’ closing. He appeared before the SRC that spring and asked for time to straighten out the nonprofit’s troubles, which included a payout to settle sexual harassment claims against Aspira CEO Alfredo Calderon.

Before Thursday, non-renewal votes on the Aspira schools had appeared on the SRC’s agenda three times, the last of which came in October 2016. But the SRC never took definitive action, and the issue largely receded from public view.

And it could be years more before Olney and Stetson return to District control, if that ever happens. The SRC is required to take a second non-renewal vote after a series of public meetings. If the commissioners reach the same decision that they did Thursday night, Aspira can then appeal the vote to a state board and eventually sue in Commonwealth Court.

Also at Thursday’s meeting, parent Isaac Gardner angrily confronted the SRC over an incident in which his 8-year-old son at Solis-Cohen Elementary School was taken into a bathroom by a school police officer. Superintendent William Hite acknowledged that mistakes had been made and said that an investigation into possible misconduct on the part of the officer would be reopened.

Julien Terrell of the Philadelphia Student Union also angrily addressed the board, saying that eventually, school police officers should be eliminated.

In North Philadelphia, a school reshaped by Hurricane Maria

2017-11-09T16:21:00+00:00

This article was originally published in The Notebook. In August 2020, The Notebook became Chalkbeat Philadelphia.

Carlos Soriano was entering his 9th-grade year at a vocational school in northwestern Puerto Rico when Hurricane Maria barreled through the island.

The storm wrecked his hometown of Moca, denuding the lush garden that once wove through his school’s campus. He still thinks about the aftermath of Maria – the wreckage of that garden and the looters who ransacked his town.

“I feel safer, but still, like, if there’s a little bit of noise, I still wake up,” he said. “And I wake up like three times a night, usually.”

About a month later — with his school still closed — the aspiring architect left his mother in Puerto Rico and moved in with his dad in North Philadelphia.

He enrolled at Olney Charter High School, a school of about 2,000 in the heart of Philadelphia’s Puerto Rican community.

Read the rest of this story at WHYY News

Debate club: ‘Fight Club’ for thinkers

2017-08-07T07:00:00+00:00

This article was originally published in The Notebook. In August 2020, The Notebook became Chalkbeat Philadelphia.

Debate club tends to attract kids who really like arguing. And for the kids who really, really like arguing, there’s Philadelphia’s summer debate academy that is run by the nonprofit After School Activities Partnership.

Friday was the final day of this weeklong camp, and we ventured up to George Washington Carver High School of Engineering & Science in North Philadelphia to take in the action. We figured we’d see some spirited argumentation featuring some talented Philly orators.

Instead, in Room 212, we stumbled on a classic tale — that of collaborators turned rivals.

Not unlike Shaquille O’Neal and Kobe Bryant, Dejah Hall and Jahmeer Stratton used to be a legendary tag team. Or at least that’s how they describe it.

"We were like a perfect match," said Jahmeer, a rising 8th grader at the Laboratory Charter School in West Philadelphia.

"He could tell what I was thinking without me even telling him," said Dejah, who is leaving Laboratory Charter this year for her freshman year at the Philadelphia High School for Girls.

But now, at the summer debate academy, they were squaring off for the first time.

And since we’re talking about debate kids, the highly anticipated match was naturally preceded by some smack talk.

"Second place is the first loser," Dejah declared. "I can’t be the first loser."

Read the rest of this story at NewsWorks

Middle school students debate electoral college process

2016-12-16T09:22:00+00:00

This article was originally published in The Notebook. In August 2020, The Notebook became Chalkbeat Philadelphia.

More than 130 middle school debaters representing 11 schools across Philadelphia gathered at Masterman High School this week to debate the merits of the electoral college system. As part of the Eagles’ Community Monday initiative, Philadelphia Eagles defensive end Aziz Shittu served as a judge in the final round of debates and participated in the awards ceremony as a special surprise for debaters.

The debate teams operate in partnership with After School Activities Partnerships (ASAP) Philly, whose staff members select past high school debate topics for the middle school debate clubs. This semester’s topic proposed a resolution that a direct popular vote should replace the electoral college system. “It’s very relevant, and it needs to be discussed. I feel like if adults and government officials are discussing it, then why can’t kids?” said Messiah Toure, an 8th grader from Young Scholars Charter School. Coaches said this issue was already something their students were thinking about. “Like everybody else, even though they’re kids and can’t vote, they’re still impacted by the results of elections. I think it’s something that they cared about and were curious about even before it became the topic for the debate,” said Jesse Staab, Greenfield Elementary debate coach. The tournament was the largest that ASAP Philly had ever hosted for middle school teams. The participating schools included Masterman, Mastery Charter School Hardy Williams, Overbrook Educational Center, Boys’ Latin Charter School, Friends Select, Young Scholars Charter School, Greenfield Elementary School, Hamilton Elementary School, Freire Charter School, the Laboratory Charter School, and Richard Allen Preparatory Charter School. ASAP Philly serves more than 350 Philadelphia students in 45 middle and high school debate clubs. The organization also hosts a two-week summer institute where students can practice their critical thinking and debate skills. “The summer program was my first introduction to debate,” said Anthony Enoch, an 8th grader at Young Scholars. “I used to like to argue, but now my arguments are more direct,” Enoch said. The competitors use the public forum debate style in two-member teams. A coin toss determines which sides of the issue teams will argue. The teams’ first speakers present their cases, followed by a “crossfire” question-and-answer discussion between the two. After the second speakers for each team conclude, a “grand crossfire” is held among all four debaters. High school debate members and government students from Masterman High School, as well as ASAP Philly staff, served as judges. “I’m wondering how much research [the middle school students] did and how prepared they are to talk about it. I’m looking for them to bring in some history about why it was started and about how the electoral college works,” said Masterman senior Julia Shevchuk and former debate team member. Debaters competed in three rounds, each lasting 30 minutes. Each debate has a winner, and awards are given to the schools that report the most wins over all three rounds. “Our goal is not to answer the question posed in the topic, but to have students engaged in persuasive speaking on both sides of the issue,” said Sara Morningstar, ASAP Philly debate manager and partner liaison. Masterman placed first at Monday’s event, and 7th graders Keziah Miller and José DeSilva were named the top debaters within their team. Masterman will hold this ranking until the monthly debates pick up again next semester, when debaters will face a new topic. The Eagles’ Shittu addressed the students at the award ceremony and encouraged them to continue pursuing an activity that they loved. Shittu helped raffle off prizes including a signed football, an Eagles Rubik’s cube, and a magnetic dart board. Ronairah Shedrick, an 8th grader at Young Scholars Charter School, has been competing in debate since 6th grade and wants to be a lawyer when she grows up. “One reason why I like debate is that we get to learn about the outside world around us. If we don’t know about certain things, we get to learn about it in debate and we can use it for things that we learn inside an actual classroom,” Shedrick said.

Parent engagement program celebrates creating bonds with families

2016-06-27T10:20:00+00:00

This article was originally published in The Notebook. In August 2020, The Notebook became Chalkbeat Philadelphia.

It certainly felt and sounded like summer at the end-of-the-year celebration for the Families and Schools Together (FAST) program on Friday. In Franklin Square, students and their families enjoyed food, music, and games – and celebrated the completion of FAST’s eight-week program.

FAST is an internationally known parent engagement program that locally is run by Turning Points for Children, a social service agency in Philadelphia. The program supports the relationships among students, families, and their schools, helping to create the bonds necessary for children to thrive. FAST operated in 15 Philadelphia schools last fall and 30 schools in the spring of 2015. Carla Thompson, the Turning Points for Children program management director, said the program hopes to expand to 46 schools next year.

“There’s a culture of FAST that’s in the schools,” Thompson said. “If you run into somebody who’s been a FAST family, there’s a bond that they have.”

Students who participate in FAST bring their family members along to weekly meetings after school. These sessions, which typically last two and half hours, focus on strengthening the family dynamic. For example, students and their families learn to collaborate by sharing meals and working together to complete activities.

In one of the first experiences at FAST, for instance, students work with their families to construct a “family flag” that “symbolizes union,” said Thompson. There is also time to break off into parent-only and student-only groups where they learn from one another before coming back to a group setting.

FAST is an expansive program that engages members from all areas of the community. It has a network of volunteers – parent partners, school partners, community partners, and recreation partners – who each play a role in making the program run smoothly. Parent partners get parents involved in the program, school partners collaborate with teachers and principals to gauge the effectiveness of the program, community partners help to link families with resources, and recreation partners develop activities that are centered on the child.

FAST holds events for the families even after the eight-week session ends in what the program calls FAST Works. These events allow families to continue working on their relationship-building skills.

FAST also runs pre- and post-tests to collect information about the program’s effectiveness. According to a FAST fact sheet, in 2015, suspensions among FAST students decreased by 63 percent and poor conduct decreased by 39 percent. Prosocial behavior improved for 36 percent of FAST students, and parent involvement increased by 55 percent.

Kia Cooper-Gray, a parent of a former FAST student and now a parent partner, said that she has noticed some of the effects of the program in her own family. Cooper-Gray first learned about FAST a couple of years ago when her daughter, Kahmira, then a 6th grader at Universal Vare Middle School, came home with a piece of paper describing the program. Cooper-Gray said that she thought that the program would be a good “chance for working parents to get involved,” so she decided to participate.

Cooper-Gray said that she learned “to be more interactive with people” through the program, and now she uses that skill in her role as a parent partner. Cooper-Gray makes calls to other parents, letting them know about upcoming events and encouraging them to attend program meetings.

“Now I talk to other parents about the experience and hope that they join us,” said Cooper-Gray.

Jennifer Katchk, another parent partner, said that FAST offered her an opportunity to connect with her daughter, a kindergartner at Vare-Washington Elementary. She heard about FAST at her daughter’s afterschool program, and immediately signed up.

They went through the FAST program during the spring session this year.

She said she spent “quality, one-on-one time with my daughter. It brought me and my 6-year-old closer.”

Surprises, twists in SRC meeting dominated by charter votes

2016-05-19T21:25:00+00:00

This article was originally published in The Notebook. In August 2020, The Notebook became Chalkbeat Philadelphia.

The School Reform Commission voted Thursday to turn over John Wister Elementary School in Germantown to Mastery Charter, but did not take votes to begin the process of pulling the plug on four other Renaissance charters that are operated by two major community organizations in the city, ASPIRA and Universal Companies.

It was prepared to turn over another school, Cooke Elementary in Logan, to the New York-based Great Oaks Foundation. But at the last minute, Great Oaks pulled out – citing the loss of anticipated startup funding that, it said, would hinder its ability to “adequately do the job that was expected of us.”

The letter from Great Oaks CEO Michael Duffey did not specify the source of the grant. But DawnLynne Kacer, head of the charter office, later confirmed that it was $1 million from the Philadelphia School Partnership.

Almost lost in the maneuvering was its vote on a two-year, $42 million contract to hire Kelly Services to provide substitute services to the District, replacing Source4Teachers, which failed to improve the District’s own rate of filling classrooms left empty due to teacher absences.

The nearly four-hour meeting was filled with twists, surprises and parliamentary moves that served to underscore the divisiveness of the Renaissance initiative, under which low-performing District schools are converted to neighborhood charters as a turnaround strategy.

The SRC expected to turn over three schools this year, but now is ceding just two – Wister, as well as Huey in West Philadelphia to Global Leadership Academy, which it voted on April 29. At the same time, the non-renewal reports from the charter office on Olney High School and Stetson Middle School, run by ASPIRA, and Vare and Audenried, run by Universal Companies, cited significant problems at those turnaround schools with academics, operations, and finances.

After a plea from Ken Trujillo, former city solicitor and a short-lived mayoral candidate, the SRC gave ASPIRA another week to make its case. Trujillo has been retained by ASPIRA as an “oversight counsel” to help the organization fix problems and straighten out multiple financial and operational irregularities, including violations of its own bylaws and the commingling of funds among its several schools and between the schools and the parent organization.

Commissioner Bill Green said the body agreed to postpone votes on ASPIRA partly because of their faith in Trujillo.

“He’s trusted by members of the SRC. He’s been trying to engage for a month … unfortunately, our bureaucracy delayed his opportunity,” he said.

It became clear from the commissioners’ questioning of Trujillo that ASPIRA is floating a major bond issue to raise funds and pay debts. The bond would allow the organization to “do more activities than those directly related to its schools. … We have to look carefully at the flow of funds,” said Commissioner Feather Houstoun.

She added, “The schools have academic performance that achieves a standard that would otherwise lead to renewal, but the charter school office has given us a set of issues that we need to resolve.”

Trujillo said there are serious matters that need to be addressed within the organization, but pushed back against the idea that ASPIRA should face non-renewal for fiscal or governance issues.

Referring to the issue of commingling funds among different schools or between schools and the parent organization, he said, “There’s nothing illegal about them. … There’s no indication whatsoever, that I’ve seen, that there was anything wrong that went on.”

The District has been raising questions about ASPIRA’s funding and operations since at least 2014. Last year, Olney’s teachers voted to unionize after a three-year campaign strongly resisted by ASPIRA. At the SRC meeting, two Olney teachers testified that they and the students should not be punished for the behavior of ASPIRA Inc.

“We want to be part of the process of looking together with ASPIRA administration and the SRC at how we can address the concerns about our school,” said teacher Sarah Apt.

The district’s charter office had also recommended non-renewals of Universal’s Audenried High and Vare elementary.

The SRC took votes on these schools, but they didn’t result in any formal action. Bill Green and Farah Jimenez abstained, and the other commissioners split. Sylvia Simms voted against the non-renewal, while Houstoun and chair Marjorie Neff voted in favor. SRC actions require at least three affirmative votes to pass.

After the meeting, Green explained that he abstained because he was not satisfied by the recommendation of the charter office, and again expressed his mistrust in the inconsistencies of the District’s School Progress Report metric.

“I’m just not comfortable that I have enough information to make a determination that we’d want to replace the schools with District operators,” said Green.

Green said another non-renewal vote could come up at any time. Without the SRC taking action, the charter’s agreement will remain in effect.

The SRC voted to renew Universal Bluford. Last year it voted to revoke the charter, but Thursday it decided to change course after getting Universal to agree to strict conditions.

“They essentially agreed to terminate their charter if they don’t meet the criteria provided in the charter they just agreed to,” said Green. “So they would have no right of appeal in two years.”

Green said this is much more preferable than allowing a costly appeals process to drag on for years.

City Controller Alan Butkovitz released a report Tuesday citing operational irregularities on the part of both ASPIRA and Universal.

The vote to turn over Wister to Mastery came after months of controversy that bitterly split its Germantown community. Superintendent William Hite had initially recommended Wister to become a charter, but then reversed course after citing data showing some academic improvement at the school. But a parent base, newly convinced that Mastery would improve the school, found an ally in Simms, who in January introduced a surprise resolution defying Hite. It got the support of Green and Houstoun.

The Cooke saga turned out to be almost as tangled.

After months of contentious debate, the SRC approved the conversion of Cooke at its April meeting. The fine details of the contract, though, were still being negotiated.

In a letter to Hite on Thursday afternoon, Great Oaks CEO Duffey said it was with “heavy heart” that he decided to withdraw the charter application for Cooke, but cited fiscal concerns as the deciding factor.

“After closely examining our start-up budget in light of the uncertainty around the state of Pennsylvania’s finances, the lack of available support from the local philanthropic community and the unpredictable financial obligations that would come from fully serving the students at Cooke, we have reluctantly concluded that we would not have the resources needed to adequately do the job that was being asked of us,” he said.

Duffey said Scholar Academies’ decision to pull out of its Renaissance obligations at Kenderton elementary “weighed heavily” on the decision.

City Councilwoman Helen Gym first rang alarm bells about the viability of Great Oaks’ initial application in February. The District’s charter office had minimized those concerns and recommended the conversion upon vetting the full application.

“There was a material and significant change in their situation over the past couple of weeks that was determined after the approval by the SRC and the reccomendation by the charter schools office,” said Kacer. “They had had pledged start-up funding that they had been anticipating to have … that was withdrawn from them by a funder.”

She confirmed that funder was the Philadelphia School Partnership. PSP declined to comment on a potential grant not yet approved by its board.

Gym felt vindicated by Thursday’s turn of events.

“Ultimately, we cannot rely on charters to fix our school district. We’ve waited too long to reinvest in and re-envision our District schools. That’s where my hope in the future for our public schools lies,” she said in a statement.

The SRC also voted on four resolutions of charters seeking to expand their enrollment agreements.

It approved Christopher Columbus Charter’s bid to grow from 794 to 900 students, with conditions. The South Philadelphia school must wait until 2018-19 to reach that number.

The SRC rejected bids to boost enrollment from Franklin Towne and Maritime Academy. Against the charter office’s reccomendation, it granted Pan American Academy 33 additional seats. Green said he visited the school and found it had an excellent academic environment. Academic concerns were raised for each, among other issues.

After false start, DHS evaluating afterschool programs for possible cuts

2015-01-22T15:38:00+00:00

This article was originally published in The Notebook. In August 2020, The Notebook became Chalkbeat Philadelphia.

Last week, Philadelphia providers of afterschool programs such as tutoring and college prep were shaken up when their budgets were cut without warning.

Logging onto internal invoicing and attendance software, providers saw that their "slot levels," or the number of students they serve through Philadelphia’s Department of Human Services funding, had dropped.

The largest of the 71 afterschool providers, EducationWorks, experienced cuts that represented about 10 percent of the 1,200 kids they serve with DHS funding.

"Needless to say, providers were shocked," said Elise Schiller, Pennsylvania director at EducationWorks.

To make budget cuts of that size, her organization would have to lay off 25 staff members and shut out about 150 kids, Schiller said, but it would still be able to operate.

"For small providers, those who operate one or two programs … this is a death knell," she said. "Especially since there’s no preparation for it."

The cuts totaled about $1.6 million across all providers over the second half of the budget year.

DHS Commissioner Vanessa Garrett Harley said software changes and an "unauthorized letter" caused "unnecessary panic and alarm among some service providers."

"I met with our OST [out-of-school-time] partners today to address their concerns," said Harley in a statement. "We are in the process of reviewing all of our prevention service contracts to determine what, if any, cost savings are possible, however, no decisions have been made regarding cuts at this time."

Read the rest of this story at NewsWorks

Pa. districts and community groups get $23 million to support at-risk youth

2014-09-29T18:13:00+00:00

This article was originally published in The Notebook. In August 2020, The Notebook became Chalkbeat Philadelphia.

The Pennsylvania recipients of a major federal grant program aimed at supporting at-risk youth were announced today by Gov. Corbett and his wife, Susan.

Sixty-four school districts and community-based organizations across the state will receive $23 million in three-year 21st Century Community Learning Centers grants. The grants will help support out-of-school time programs that give academic support to students from underperfoming schools and high-poverty areas, who are at risk of dropping out or disengaging from school.

More than a third of that money will go to 23 grantees based in Philadelphia, a mix of community organizations and charter schools. (See the list of Philadelphia grantees below.)

But who was not a grantee this year? The School District of Philadelphia. The reason, according to Vicki Ellis, the District’s strategic partnerships director, is that the District did not apply, opting instead to play the role of coordinator.

"We assisted and directed dozens of community-based organizations, which has been our strategy of late," said Ellis. "Nearly all of the organizations listed for Philadelphia, with the exception of the charter school grantees, will be operating in District schools."

The 21st Century grants, she said, are the second-largest funding stream (after the Department of Human Services) for the city’s massive effort to organize its out-of-school-time programs, a project that Ellis helps manage.

"We are thrilled so many of our partners experienced in providing quality afterschool programming were funded. This means more afterschool activities for more students."

The District, Ellis said, will provide the Notebook with the complete list of grantees and their partnering schools soon.

As a requirement of the grant, the districts, schools, or local organizations must offer students enrichment activities that they might not receive in school or at home.

Philadelphia-based grant recipients

After School All Starts Philadelphia, $325,550

Boys Latin Charter School of Philadelphia, $400,000

Church of St. Andrew and St. Monica, $399,100

Congreso de Latinos Unidos, $400,000

Drexel University, $305,775

Education Works, $400,000

Episcopal Community Services, $195,000

Foundations, $400,000

Freire Charter School, $400,000

Independence Charter School, $210,000

Lutheran Children and Family Services, $306,338

Maritime Academy Charter School, $400,000

Netter Center for Community Partnerships, $399,672

Oxford Circle Christian Community Development Association of Philadelphia, $52,499

Philadelphia Arts in Education Partnership, $400,000

Philadelphia Electrical and Technical Charter School, $400,000

Public Health Management Corp., $400,000

Sunrise of Philadelphia, $360,000

The Salvation Army, $386,004

To Our Children’s Future with Health, $360,000

Truebright Science Academy Charter School, $400,000

Universal Daroff Charter School, $400,000

Young Scholars Frederick Douglass Charter School, $381,400

National survey shows increase in summer program participation

2014-08-08T15:03:00+00:00

This article was originally published in The Notebook. In August 2020, The Notebook became Chalkbeat Philadelphia.

Summer learning programs are showing growing popularity among families, according to a national survey conducted by the Afterschool Alliance, an organization that advocates for afterschool programs.

The survey, which collected data from nearly 14,000 U.S. households, indicates that 33 percent of parents nationwide sent at least one child to a summer learning program in 2013, compared to 25 percent in 2009. About 51 percent of parents surveyed said that they wanted their child to participate in such programs if a high-quality option was made available.

While the popularity of the programs has increased, the cost to participate continues to be a challenge for some parents. The national weekly average cost for those who paid for summer programs last year was $250, an average that exceeds the benchmark for affordable child care. As a result, questions remain as to whether most parents can afford the expense and whether these programs can be made more accessible through additional public funding. In the survey, 86 percent of parents said they would support public funding of the programs.

Summer learning programs are one element of a nationwide Campaign for Grade-Level Reading, which aims to improve literacy rates among kids. The campaign seeks to help students from low-income families attain grade-level reading by the end of 3rd grade, a critical milestone and predictor of school success. It also targets school absenteeism, reduction of the school readiness gap, and parent engagement. This is the first year that Philadelphia has rallied around the campaign.

But Matthew Freeman, who works with the Afterschool Alliance, said that they don’t yet have definitive numbers about Philadelphia’s summer program participation, “at least none that are comprehensive enough to paint a fair portrait.”

“We might when we release the entire report this October, but I’m afraid it’s too soon for that,” Freeman said.

Summer programs in Philadelphia are run by a variety of groups including the School District, recreation centers, libraries, museum-based summer programs, and athletic camps. The campaign aims to collect data this year on the programs to improve their quality and to help track enrollment rates.

Vicki Ellis, director of afterschool programs at the District, said that when comparing Philadelphia over the last five summers, the data could show that enrollments may not actually have increased.

“That is due to the decline in the District’s own summer programming due to our budget restraints. That’s why other options citywide are so critical to reducing the summer slide or in our case in reducing the slide in the number of summer opportunities overall.”

Hina Fathima is an intern at the Notebook.

Muñoz-Marín parents vote decisively to keep school within the District

2014-06-06T09:56:00+00:00

This article was originally published in The Notebook. In August 2020, The Notebook became Chalkbeat Philadelphia.

Updated | 3:50 p.m.: Superintendent William Hite announced that Muñoz-Marín will remain a traditional District school, saying, “Parents and guardians have chosen a path for their school and we are going to support their choice and quickly move forward with the very important work of improving outcomes for students at Muñoz Marín.”

A long, lively day of voting at Muñoz-Marín School in North Philadelphia ended with a decisive victory for the school’s current administration, with parents rejecting a proposed match with a charter provider, ASPIRA, and electing to remain under District management.

“It’s 223 for traditional public school and 70 for ASPIRA,” spokesperson Fernando Gallard announced at 7:45 Thursday night to a roar of delight from the school’s jubilant supporters and staff.

In a separate vote Thursday, parents on Muñoz-Marín’s School Advisory Council also voted to reject ASPIRA, 11-0.

“We were right. And we won,” shouted Vivian Rodriguez, a retired teacher and vocal supporter of the school, as Muñoz-Marín supporters danced and chanted around her. “You know what 11-0 means? That means, ‘in your face!’”

Principal Ximena Carreño was likewise exhilarated.

“It’s a big thing,” she said, beaming. “For me, it’s like, I don’t know, a miracle. The community was with us, all the time. I’m very tired – but I’m so happy. So happy.”

ASPIRA officials left quickly after the vote was counted. The provider had not been optimistic going in, but CEO Alfredo Calderon said he felt they had done the best they could. “We’re OK,” Calderon said before the vote. “We’re comfortable with the job we did.”

Heidi Gold of the League of Women Voters, which oversaw the vote, said that the balloting went off without a hitch. “A perfect day,” she said, with only a few minor issues, such as the occasional ineligible voter or missing ID.

The League also oversaw the SAC vote, which was equally trouble-free — unlike last month’s SAC vote at Steel Elementary. At Steel, District officials didn’t report the number of eligible SAC voters until the last minute, resulting in some SAC members being turned away. District officials also monitored the vote themselves without outside observers, and their alleged mishandling of the votes triggered grievances from Steel supporters.

In contrast, at Muñoz-Marín, District officials determined SAC voting eligibility days ago, allowing SAC president Maria Cruz to make sure that all the eligible voters were present. Gold said the SAC vote went thoroughly by the book: “You could have heard a pin drop in there,” she said.

About one-third of 1,000 eligible voters cast ballots – “better than most Philadelphia elections,” said one teacher with a smile.

The scene was a lively one, with supporters for both sides bustling about and chatting with voters, passing cars honking horns, and parents sporting “I Voted” stickers as they headed home.

The school’s support included union organizers and volunteers from the Philadelphia Coalition for Public Schools (PCAPS). ASPIRA had staff and supporters of its own on hand.

And unlike the scene at Steel, election day at Muñoz-Marín featured an active showing of local politicians, all supporting the school’s current administration.

A sound truck provided by Leslie Acosta, the District’s Democratic nominee for the General Assembly (virtually assured of victory in November), drove through the neighborhood all day, urging residents to “get out and vote! Let’s keep this school public!” She and her father, Ralph, a longtime activist and former state senator, were on hand to press the pro-public message, as was local ward leader Carlos Matos.

The polls closed at 7 p.m., and the ballot-counting began.

It wasn’t long before a burst of cheers came from the building, where word of the SAC vote had just leaked out. Inside, Muñoz-Marín supporters began to dance and chant while waiting for Gallard to provide the final tally. At 7:45 p.m. he made the official announcement, triggering a fresh round of cheers and delight from the parents, staff, and school supporters crowded in Muñoz-Marín’s front hall.

None was happier than Cruz, the SAC president, who had been accused by ASPIRA of personally blocking its efforts to get SAC members eligible to vote. ASPIRA filed a written complaint about Cruz just days before the election.

That complaint did not result in any response from the District, and in the end, it appears that almost all SAC members became eligible and voted. “I fought for the parents!” she shouted, hugging friends and supporters in delight.

The two-month campaign, which grew increasingly contentious as election day neared, was not without its cost for the winning side.

Principal Carreño thinks she’ll probably lose some teachers next year, because site-selection deadlines required them to start looking for new jobs before knowing Muñoz-Marín’s fate. Her already-overworked staff was stressed by the process, she said. And her plans for school improvements will take money that’s yet to be found.

But for now, Carreño said, she’ll get some rest, and then get started on the next chapter. “The Marín family,” she promised, “will be working together to get better and better and better.”

Chess clubs raising money to compete on state and national levels

2014-01-23T14:43:00+00:00

This article was originally published in The Notebook. In August 2020, The Notebook became Chalkbeat Philadelphia.

by Jeseamy Muentes

The Minor Threats Chess Club traveled in 2013 to tournaments throughout the city and state, and as far away as Nashville — for the Chess SuperNationals in April.

Now, Minor Threats and the Philadelphia Chess Society, which include Paul Robeson Elementary Chess Club and Blair Bishops Chess Club, are raising money to participate in even more competitions this year.

The Philadelphia Chess Society is working to raise $20,000 to get 40 students to the Pennsylvania State Scholastic Chess Championships in Carlisle, Pa.; the Junior High National Chess Championships in Atlanta, and the Elementary National Chess Championships in Dallas.

Minor Threats founder and coach Jason Bui has created a page on the crowdfunding site gofundme.com, which allows people to donate online, as well as leave messages for the students.

“It’s amazing the messages and [donations] that are left from complete strangers,” Bui said.

Bui and the Philadelphia Chess Society have also started to sell key chains, shirts, and stickers, and have held bake sales to raise money.

Winners at these competitions receive a trophy and can receive recognition in either an individual or club category. In the K-6 division, Minor Threats brought home a team trophy, winning second place as a club at state championships in March.

“Some other clubs, they fool around,” said chess captain Tahvon Hughes, a 5th grader at S. Weir Mitchell Elementary in West Philadelphia.

“I want to go to Dallas because we’re serious, and we want to represent our city and our school.”

Named for the late 1980s band Minor Threat, the club comprises students from different schools, ages 7 to 13, in grades 3 through 7. They practice one hour every Tuesday in the Kingsessing Branch of the Free Library of Philadelphia, with Bui making a point to go over the pros and cons of every move the players make.

“It helps me in math,” Hughes said. “And it helps you slow down when you do things in life and think.”

Besides their weekly practices, the club also goes to bi-weekly Saturday tournaments throughout the city.

Through these competitions, Bui said, the students "get exposure to things and people they would not get otherwise.”

“There have been a lot of firsts for the kids [in Minor Threats], first time getting out of the city or first time out of state,” Bui said.

Besides the chance to play against the best in their age group in the country, Bui said that the traveling also allows the chess club to gain new perspective on the world.

“Their lives are different after these big events,” he said.

Jeseamy Muentes is an intern at the Notebook.

New report finds gains at Renaissance schools — but not across the board

2014-01-02T23:29:00+00:00

This article was originally published in The Notebook. In August 2020, The Notebook became Chalkbeat Philadelphia.

Schools turned over to charter operators — and to a lesser extent, District-run Promise Academies — have shown improvements in academics and climate under the three-year-old Renaissance schools turnaround initiative, a new report has found, although big first- and second-year gains have started to slow down or reverse.

According to the study, conducted by the District’s Office of Research and Evaluation, most Renaissance charters continue to have higher proficiency rates than those schools did pre-turnaround, despite the leveling-off of earlier gains.

The reported improvements occurred during a time when overall proficiency rates for District-run schools were declining after years of increases; the downslide began after strict test protocols were put in place in District schools in the wake of a statewide cheating scandal.

As a group, the seven schools in the first cohort — those converted starting in 2010 — posted the most dramatic gains. The academic results for the most recent cohort studied — the four schools converted to Renaissance charters in 2012 — were decidedly mixed.

The report indicates that the Promise Academies model showed some modest success at the start, but has been plagued by "an unprecedented budget shortfall" and "lack of clarity about what distinguished Promise Academies from other schools."

Since the Renaissance initiative began in 2010, 17 elementary and middle schools and three high schools have been turned over to charter operators. In addition, eight elementary and middle schools and seven high schools were named as Promise Academies for intensive "in-house" turnaround. But three of the Promise Academies, all of them high schools, have since been shut down.

Three of the Renaissance turnarounds and six of the Promise Academies just started this year and were not included in the evaluation. There were nine Promise Academies and 17 Renaissance schools operating in 2012-13 and covered in the study — either in their first, second, or third year of turnaround.

The report found uneven performance among the seven Renaissance providers.

Mastery — the largest provider, with six of the schools in the study — showed across-the-board double-digit gains in all its schools in both math and reading, although those gains for the most part had begun to stall or reverse in the third year. Universal, which runs five schools, showed reading gains in four of the five but math declines in three. ASPIRA, with two schools, showed gains in both, although one school’s results began to slide in the third year.

Young Scholars’ school, Frederick Douglass, showed big math gains in the first two years and smaller reading gains. But last spring in year three, the math gains reversed precipitously and the reading gains flattened. Mosaica’s Birney Elementary, which started as a Renaissance school in 2011, in the second cohort, has shown steady gains in its first two years.

String Theory and American Paradigm had completed one full year running one school each. Math and reading proficiency rates at String Theory’s Performing Arts Charter at Edmunds were mostly flat. At Memphis Street Academy, formerly John Paul Jones Middle School, math proficiency declined substantially while reading scores were flat.

Of the three high schools turned over to charter operators in 2011, both Gratz, run by Mastery, and Olney, run by ASPIRA, showed gains in math and reading in the year after the turnaround (2013 PSSA scores were not available for the high schools).

Audenried, run by Universal, however, showed declines in both subjects. Audenried had started out with the highest proficiency rates of the three Renaissance high schools but slipped to the lowest.

Noting that the concept of turnaround relies on "dramatic" and sustained gains, the report’s authors expressed concerns about whether Universal and Young Scholars, based on the first three years’ performance, could maintain an upward trajectory at their schools. "Changes … were positive in the first two years, but those increases have not been sustained," the report said. "As such, these schools may fall short of what is needed to achieve dramatic results within 5-6 years."

It also describes the schools run by String Theory and American Paradigm in their first year of turnaround as "floundering."

The report said that all Mastery schools remain on an "upward trajectory" — despite third-year declines or flattening out at most of its schools.

Alfredo Calderon, executive director of ASPIRA, said that he had not yet read the report, but was not surprised that the early gains are leveling off.

"We expected that," he said. "Just by making the change we make immediately — safety first — kids feel, ‘I can come to school.’ They feel [they] can learn, they don’t have to worry they’ll get beat up, we’re bringing in teachers who want to teach — automatically the scores go up," he said. "There’s a full change of culture, discipline, educational philosophy."

Although the study relied heavily on PSSA scores, it did review other measures, including retention of students and climate indicators.

It found that, after turnaround, both Promise Academies and Renaissance charters were more successful in keeping students enrolled for the entire school year — so-called "within-year retention." The Renaissance charters had a greater increase. The Promise Academies improved within-year retention for 9th graders, but not for students in the elementary and middle grades.

Although the report concluded that, overall, there was not a big change in the demographic makeup of students attending Renaissance charters before and after turnaround, researchers found that there has been a statistically significant decrease in the percentage of English language learners — from 8.6 percent to 7.2 percent — and an increase in the percentage of special education students — from 16.8 percent to 19.9 percent.

At both the Renaissance charters and the Promise Academies, about 80 percent of the students who attended the schools pre-turnaround continued to attend after the conversion, the data show. Some of the Renaissance schools showed increases in enrollment, which suggests that more students from the area who hadn’t enrolled before decided to attend after they were converted to charters.

Most Renaissance schools, both charters and Promise Academies, also showed improvements in school climate, with almost across-the-board declines in reported serious incidents per 100 students and in the number of student offenders. The biggest declines were at Renaissance charters; there were no serious incidents at all in 2012-13 at Smedley Elementary, run by Mastery, and Edmunds, run by String Theory. At five of Mastery’s six Renaissance schools, the percentage of students who were "offenders" involved in serious incidents was 1 percent or less.

A big exception to the positive trend in serious incidents was Birney Elementary in Logan, run by Mosaica, which showed a fivefold increase in serious incidents, although Birney’s academic indicators showed significant gains.

The report noted that at the Promise Academies, resources were severely cut back in 2011 after the first year of the initiative.

Most of the Promise Academies showed gains in the first year that then leveled off or declined. At three of the first four Promise Academies — Ethel Allen, Clemente and Potter-Thomas — proficiency rates have declined to below pre-turnaround levels. Only at Dunbar were the first-year gains sustained.

"It is possible that the Promise Academies are suffering more from poor fidelity of implementation than outright failure of the turnaround effort," it says, noting that the model has been altered each year. "It is likely that the charters have benefited from a clarity-of-purpose that has been lacking at the Promise Academy schools."

ASPIRA’s Calderon also noted that that at his schools, 40 percent of the students are English language learners (ASPIRA schools have most of the ELLs in Renaissance charters), and more than 20 percent are in special education. The students at Olney include not just Latinos, but West Africans, Asians, and Haitians, he said.

He predicted that scores will start rising again because of the approach taken by ASPIRA and some of the other charter operators, which heavily relies on constant feedback for teachers.

"We’re adjusting as we’re going along. Teachers look at their lesson plans, the curriculum. … That’s how we do it — look at the data and adjust based on what the data says."

He also pointed out that the Renaissance schools were by definition the lowest-performing in the District, so the task is monumental. "It’s not easy," he said. "And it takes time."

District again postpones votes to renew two charters

2013-12-20T00:22:00+00:00

This article was originally published in The Notebook. In August 2020, The Notebook became Chalkbeat Philadelphia.

The School Reform Commission postponed scheduled votes on two charter schools Thursday, pulling one at the last minute for reasons related to an investigation of test cheating.

Philadelphia Electrical & Technology Charter High School was one of three city charters flagged by the state for potential cheating after analyses of test results for 2009, 2010, and 2011 showed statistical irregularities. The charter was directed by the state to conduct an investigation, which resulted in the dismissal of an assistant principal and the imposition of stricter testing protocols.

The renewal vote on PE&T was delayed, officials said, not because of problems with the school’s own probe, but because the District is not yet ready to release its investigations into possible cheating at more than a dozen District-run schools.

"We realized at the last minute that this is going to raise a whole lot of issues on the testing integrity investigation of charter and Disrict schools," said Deputy Superintendent Paul Kihn after the meeting. The PE&T charter renewal resolution details all the steps that the District wants the charter to adopt, including an independent testing monitor, to insure that any cheating doesn’t happen again. Kihn said that the District wanted to insure "consistency of approach" in how the charters and District schools are treated.

The District has been promising the release of its own investigation into possible cheating at 19 schools for more than a year. Chief counsel Michael Davis said after Thursday’s meeting that the investigation was complete, except for decisions on what sanctions to impose on individuals who were implicated in wrongdoing.

A contingent of teachers from the school attended the meeting, along with the chairman of its board and its attorney, both of whom were livid.

Attorney Kevin McKenna said that the SRC sent the renewal at 11:45 p.m. on Wednesday and that the charter’s personnel spent the better part of the night and day reviewing it, only to learn a scant half-hour before the meeting was to start that the vote had been postponed again.

"This is a good school, with good staff, and continual inaction by the SRC is not demonstrating goodwill to the school or to the charter community," McKenna said. "Once again we ask you to approve the school’s charter."

Board chair Charles Gibbs said this was the seventh time a vote had been postponed. "The lack of a charter and predictability has negatively impacted our school, staff, leadership, ability to retain and attract students, and have a clean audit," Gibbs said. "We’re ready to put this chapter behind us."

After those test security measures were put in place, scores at PE&T dropped 29 points in reading and 30 points in math in 2012, one of the largest drops of any school in the city.

The other school whose charter was initially scheduled for renewal was Laboratory Charter, whose founder, Dorothy June Brown, is awaiting a federal jury verdict on dozens of fraud counts. After hearing evidence for more than a month and deliberating for a week, the jury on Thursday acquitted two of her associates and announced that it was deadlocked on the counts against Brown. The judge said they would resume deliberations after the holidays.

Brown is no longer associated with the schools she founded. Kihn said that the postponement of that vote was because Laboratory officials were still reviewing the charter and had not yet signed it.

More than two dozen of the city’s 86 charters are operating without charter renewals, some because they do not want to accept enrollment caps that the District is insisting on, others for different reasons. Kihn sent letters to the schools giving them a deadline of Dec. 15 to agree to the District’s terms or face sanctions that could include seeking non-renewals of their charters.

"We are working round the clock to make sure all our charter [schools] have signed charters," Kihn said, adding that the District had spoken to all of them and that the talks "had made progress" in all but a few cases. He said he would release more detailed information Friday.

Also at the meeting, Commissioner Joseph Dworetzky, who was participating by telephone, drew attention to a new report on the District website assessing the District’s Renaissance Schools initiative to turn around low-performing schools. It shows that most of the turnaround charters improved reading and math proficiency of their students at the same time that District scores were declining. One notable exception was Audenried High School, run by Universal Companies, which saw a steeper decline than the District as a whole.

The report also shows that first-year gains in Promise Academies, which are District-run turnarounds, have not been maintained. Most of the extra resources in the Promise Academies have been cut.

The report said that all Mastery charter schools "are on an upward trajectory," while "ASPIRA Stetson is also on track, and Olney High has limited, but positive evidence of change."

"Outcomes for the other providers should be scrutinized closely once data is available for the 2013-14 year," the report’s conclusion said.

Two parents from Renaissance schools run by Mastery spoke at the meeting, saying that the program is improving education for their children.

The District posted the report but did not otherwise draw attention to it.

Many afterschool programs remain intact despite budget cuts

2013-10-17T12:43:00+00:00

This article was originally published in The Notebook. In August 2020, The Notebook became Chalkbeat Philadelphia.

The District’s funding troubles have had some impact on the hundreds of afterschool programs now under way across the city.

Some programs had to pack up and relocate when the District closed two dozen schools last June. Other programs were left scrambling to find volunteers to replace teachers who led afterschool initiatives in past years for extra pay, according to out-of-school-time (OST) advocates in recent interviews.

Despite cutbacks and scrimping, however, the District has kept school doors open for about 100 programs serving more than 3,800 children — and out-of-school programs operating under the aegis of the city’s Department of Human Services overall still reach about 20,000 children in grades K-12 on weekday afternoons.

Over the summer, the focus was on relocating programs impacted by shuttered schools.

The District collaborated successfully with the city and organizations that run afterschool programs to sort out location and other changes, said Tom Sheaffer, a city official who oversaw the startup of an ambitious project to upgrade, promote and coordinate all the out-of-school opportunities in the city regardless who runs them. It is called the OST System of Systems Building Project.

Sheaffer said he was “unaware of any programs that have lost access to buildings or other supports” except for two in Police Athletic League centers that were displaced for a time.

Vicki Ellis, who coordinates afterschool and summer programming for the District, said much the same.

“Afterschool has been kept whole from last year,” she said.

She attributed this to the maintenance of two funding sources — state funds as allocated by DHS, and the federal 21st Century Community Learning Centers program. (Sheaffer has announced plans to retire, and Ellis recently assumed his duties leading the OST umbrella project.)

According to Ellis, the District “has always allowed nonprofit afterschool providers to operate at no cost” because custodial staff members are there cleaning the buildings.

In addition, the District food service department provides food to children in attendance at no cost to providers.

“Providers do not bear that cost, making it significantly cost-effective for [those programs],” she said.

Lorraine McGirt, OST administrator for DHS, stressed that her department “has maintained its commitment and preserved funding at the $21 million level,” about the same as last fiscal year. Nearly $8.5 million of that total is directed to OST programs being operated in District facilities by non-District providers.

The big blow to school-based OST programming was delivered two years ago, when the District lost state funding to run its own remedial programs. Funding plummeted from a peak of $51 million in 2010-11 to $4 million last year. DHS also lost state funding, and its investment in afterschool and summer programming is at least $15 million less annually than it was in 2008.

But McGirt remains upbeat.

“We not only want young people to enroll, but we want them to participate over a period of time. We really stress that. The research shows how beneficial participating in afterschool programs can be,” she said.

A directory of OST programs compiled by the After School Activities Partnerships (ASAP) and published in September shows nearly 900 programs in all Philadelphia zip codes — an increase of about 100 programs over last year. The added listings represent both programs that are new this year and programs that were not previously listed. A list of nearby OST programs is available here.

ASAP director Justin Ennis said student numbers were “holding steady” in the chess, debate, drama, and Scrabble clubs sponsored by his group. Club directors, Ennis said, had to “look for relationships with volunteers to pick up the slack when teachers were not available to lead programs,” as they had in past years when principals had discretionary extracurricular funds to pay for them. City Year participants and college students were sources being tapped, he said.

ASAP staffers were preoccupied in the weeks after schools opened with helping to make sure teachers had the supplies they needed, including copy paper.

“We think now is the time to contribute in any way we can to help the schools get back on their feet,” said Ennis.

Lavarr Zuber, director of the Dream Academy Learning Center, based at Childs School in South Philadelphia, said the fall program got off to a smooth start.

“We have not suffered because we are not funded by the District,” though the District provides the space and a nutritious snack.

With a focus on children who have an incarcerated parent or who have fallen behind academically, the program serves about 80 students with activities aimed at building skills, character and dreams, Zuber said.

“We’ve seen first-hand the impact on our children. They’re being given an opportunity to improve their lives and turn around negative behaviors.”

The Mighty Writers program also is “doing fine,” said director Rachel Loeper, although she added that “our parents are a bit unsettled” about changes in the local schools.

Mighty Writers has two sites, one in South Philadelphia and a new site in West Philadelphia. The mission of these sites, Loeper said, is “to instill a love of writing and a love of education” in the projects that the students undertake after school.

“We’re going strong, but we can’t make up for the deficits impacting our young people,” she said.

Connie Langland is a freelance writer who focuses on education issues.

Resource center extends helping hand to expanded learning and summer programs

2013-07-11T14:26:00+00:00

This article was originally published in The Notebook. In August 2020, The Notebook became Chalkbeat Philadelphia.

The people who run the hundreds of youth programs across the city have their hands full, says Nancy Peter, head of the Out-of-School Time Resource Center (OSTRC) at the University of Pennsylvania.

They’ve got kids to watch over, programs to develop, and funds to raise in an era of static or dwindling resources. And the out-of-school time (OST) programs seem ever more essential as afterschool and summer programming in District schools has withered.

What many program directors lack, says Peter, is the time and energy to enhance staff skills, identify emerging trends and network with peers in the field. And that, by all accounts, is the invaluable, behind-the-scenes role that Peter and her staff play with vigor and efficiency.

“I wanted to have a center whose job it was to assist OST staff,” said Peter, who created the center a decade ago.

To that end, the OSTRC’s main focus is on professional development for the adults who operate and work in these programs. The goal is that this work will help enhance the programs’ value to young people who are often struggling academically and in other ways.

“If you’re going to have kids doing something from the time the last bell rings until 6 o’clock, you want that program to be the highest quality possible. The question is, how do you help staff get better?” said Marty Friedman, who serves on the center’s advisory board. His group, EducationWorks, runs youth programs in Philadelphia, Chester, Camden and Trenton.

“My staff are always showing up at OSTRC events. They make the time and they go. That really tells me all I need to know about how well it works,” Friedman said. Peter, he said, “saw the need for professional development for the people directly involved with the kids,” something program directors were not geared up to do.

Bringing people together

The OSTRC hosts peer-networking seminars and workshops and runs a website that gets more than 2,000 hits a month. The online document library, updated monthly, covers topics ranging from homework help to project-based learning to dropout prevention. The online calendar lists “every publicly accessible training in the area,” Peter said.

Too often, says Peter, practitioners work in isolation, unaware of networking possibilities. “People are so surprised. They say, ‘Oh my goodness, I have a peer group out there,’” Peter said.

Peter says her forté — her joy — is bringing people together.

“I say often that I made a job out of my personality. I love pulling things together. I love helping people access things,” she said. “It’s nobody’s job responsibility to amass resources and make connections. We do that for them.”

Tom Sheaffer, policy director in the city’s Office for Health & Opportunity, heaped praise on Peter’s initiative.

“She’s been a heroine of mine,” said Sheaffer, who oversees the Philadelphia OST Project. “She had this idea for a center 10, 15 years ago and she found a way to make it happen. It just keeps doing more good things.”

But because her center does not itself directly serve kids, Peter struggles for funding support. “That’s oftentimes a problem,” Sheaffer said.

The project overseen by Sheaffer aims to bolster the quality, accessibility and distribution of programs serving 40,000 children across the city. Details of the citywide project are online — on the OSTRC website, with help from Peter’s staff.

In 2009, the center launched the Philadelphia Youth Sports Collaborative to support youth sports groups with networking, programming and advocacy. More than two dozen organizations now participate.

An effective formula

Nancy Peter, head of the Out-of-School Time Resource Center at the University of Pennsylvania A recent seminar that drew about 40 youth sports practitioners illustrates the ebb and flow — and potential impact — of an OSTRC event. Attendees came from all parts of the city and all kinds of sports, including martial arts, ice and field hockey, basketball, jumping rope, angling and both girls and boys baseball.

The gathering had all the hallmarks of a Nancy Peter/Out-of-School Time Resource Center production:

Strong attendance, with about half the attendees being newcomers, a mix that over time has proven optimal (Peter has researched the issue) to energizing discussions.
A timely discussion, this one titled “Hot Topics in Sports.”
Opportunities to mingle, promote upcoming events — and still adjourn on time.

Panelist Jim Britt, chief operating officer of the Ed Snider Youth Hockey Foundation, urged listeners to develop a plan to keep children and staff safe in a crisis situation. Otherwise, he said, “the chaos is unbelievable.” A good resource, he noted, is the community outreach team or crime prevention officer in the local police district.

Speaker Kenny Holdsman, president of Legacy Youth Tennis and Education, discussed equity and access in sports programming and also mentioned the “Swiss Army knife” problem — trying to do so many things that the program loses focus.

And Peter urged attendees to find ways to gauge the impact of their programs and to become expert in measuring outcomes — the better to impress potential donors. “It’s not as impossible as you might think,” she reassured them.

A few hours later, a remarkably detailed recap of the panel discussion and the Q-and-A session that followed was delivered via email to every attendee, along with a list of everyone who had attended and their contact information.

This was not by chance: Peter has researched what she terms the “magic ingredients” to a productive session, including “panelists who are dynamic, who stay on topic, who give you tangible things to take with you, and the minutes right after, and contact information.”

Salvatore Sandone, who runs Zhang Sah Martial Arts and who, like Friedman, is on the OSTRC advisory board, said the networking events are right on point.

“She’s good at going out and getting two or three exemplars who can talk about where the rubber meets the road — how to engage hard-to-reach youth, how to develop and keep high-quality staff,” Sandone said. “Everybody has a chance to field questions. There’s a lot of rich dialogue, and you rub elbows and make those connections.”

Focusing on Philly

Peter, 57, has a background in environmental education and holds a doctorate in education from the University of Pennsylvania. The OSTRC is part of Penn’s School of Social Research and Policy. The center has an annual budget of about $450,000, and like her peers in many OST programs, she spends much time fund-raising. The OSTRC also does fee-based work assisting in the evaluations of OST-related professional development events around the country.

But the center’s main focus is on the Philadelphia area. For instance, the director of a startup extreme sports program introduced himself to Peter one recent morning, and she showered him with contacts. “It’s going to be a big deal for him to be embraced by this community,” she said. “And until this morning he was totally off my radar.”

“In another century, I would have been … a matchmaker. Over the last 10 years, we’ve developed a culture here. … An OST person with a need, a problem, a question — we can get back to you with more resources than you can imagine.”

Sheaffer, the city’s OST point person, lamented the center’s ongoing struggle with funding.

“Now more than ever, as schools drop back on arts, music, those in-school activities that focus on character development, after-school programs are so important,” Sheaffer said. “But a good-quality program needs staff who are knowledgeable. They love working with kids but they need to be trained — and that’s what the OSTRC’s peer-support initiatives are about.”.

This report is part of an ongoing series of stories on expanded learning time. The stories are the result of a multi-city reporting project by Catalyst Chicago and its partners: EdNews Colorado, EdSource Today, GothamSchools and the Philadelphia Public School Notebook.The collaborative effort was made possible by a grant from the Ford Foundation, which has made More and Better Learning Time a priority in its philanthropy.

SRC votes to close M.H. Stanton, create cyber school

2013-04-19T10:19:00+00:00

This article was originally published in The Notebook. In August 2020, The Notebook became Chalkbeat Philadelphia.

On the heels of presenting a “doomsday” budget that would reduce schools to the bare essentials, the School Reform Commission voted Thursday night to close North Philadelphia’s M.H. Stanton Elementary School, triggering an explosion of tears and rage from its supporters.

The SRC also voted to establish its own cyber charter school and renew contracts with providers of accelerated and discipline schools. It also added a new provider.

After the 3-1 closure vote, Stanton’s defenders were devastated.

“I’m hurt. I’m hurt really bad,” said Tracey Lester, a Stanton grandparent and vocal supporter.

Lester is one of a number of Stanton supporters who believe that the school was unfairly closed because of its lack of political clout. A proposal to close Stanton and save another school, Tanner Duckrey, was written by a former District official, Quibila Divine, who is also the sister of Commissioner Sylvia Simms.

As it turns out, Simms was the only commissioner to vote to keep Stanton open, but she did not comment about her vote afterward.

Earlier this week, Lester told the Notebook that she planned to testify about her concerns to the SRC, but in the end she chose not to, having been told by District officials that they prohibit the use of testimony to level accusations at third parties.

When the vote was complete and the school’s fate sealed, Lester stood in the hallway with tears welling in her eyes and said she’d put her concerns in writing but dared not speak them out loud after considering the District’s requirements.

“I was told I wasn’t allowed to mention names,” she said, her voice rising as dejected and angry Stanton supporters filed past. “I was hoping for the truth!” she shouted. “We want an internal investigation!”

District officials have defended the Stanton decision, saying it was based on Duckrey’s slightly better academic record and superior building conditions, including a new air conditioning system and an outdoor campus. Stanton needs millions in repairs, they said.

Divine has likewise defended her proposal, saying it was developed with student performance data as a guide. But she acknowledged that the informal stakeholder group that helped shape it, the North Philadelphia Collaboration, made no effort to involve Stanton supporters in the process.

The way events unfolded triggered community frustration and bitterness among those long associated with M.H. Stanton.

Duckrey was one of 37 schools on Superintendent William Hite’s original closure list. But it was one of 10 schools removed when the District revised its first plan in the face of political and community outcry. The revised plan reconfigured how the closings would impact North Philadelphia.

In cutting the 10 schools, Hite added Stanton and Beeber Middle School in West Philadelphia, leaving a total of 29 schools recommended for closure. Last month, the SRC voted to close 23 of those. And earlier this week, Hite withdrew his recommendation for Beeber, leaving Stanton seeing itself as an unlucky last-minute victim of the District’s largest mass school closings ever.

Lester’s testimony had planned to question Divine’s “personal agenda,” but District Counsel Michael Davis said that the District discourages testimony that “rais[es] questions about other individuals in a forum in which [they] may not have an opportunity to respond.”

Stanton, once lauded as a national example of how high-poverty schools could also produce high student outcomes, was also the subject of an Academy Award-winning documentary in the 1990s. It attributes its recent academic struggles to the District’s decision to pull back extra supports it had received from the now defunct Office of Restructured Schools.

Other highlights of the meeting:

District cyber school will open
The SRC approved $15 million over two years for a new cyber school called the Philadelphia Virtual Academy, which they hope will draw students back to the District from costly cyber charters. “This is not just a contract where we’re spending money,” said Deputy Superintendent Paul Kihn. “We’re spending money to recover money.” The new cyber school will be run by the Chester County Intermediate Unit. Officials have said that reclaiming just 86 of the nearly 6000 Philadelphia that now attend state-approved cyber schools will allow it to “break even.” Each cyber student costs the District an average of $9,000.

New alternative high school
The SRC approved a grant of $875,000 for a 100-student accelerated high school with a focus on arts and media, run by YESPhilly. “We appreciate that this is a very difficult time for public education,” said staffer Kyana Hopkins. “Still, you are choosing to maintain a critical safety net for students who need a chance to finish high school.” Founded in 1999, YESPhilly has worked with such partners as the District, Mastery Charters, and the Philadelphia Youth Network, and focused mainly on teacher development programs, GED and literacy programs, and advocacy for out-of-school youth. The new school will open in September. Altogether, it approved $21 million for alternative school providers.

Charter school union push
A number of teachers from ASPIRA Olney Charter High School asked the SRC to support their attempts to unionize in the face of what they described as deliberate tactics from school administrators to squash their effort. “Teachers’ suggestions are often ignored, and we do not have due process in place,” said teacher Larry Arata. “They’ve refused to engage us in any dialogue, and further, they’ve engaged in repeated activities clearly designed to deter us from exercising our legal rights.”

Teachers have filed a complaint with the National Labor Relations Board, which Arata said is now investigating. “We ask that you communicate to ASPIRA … that scare tactics, intimidation, and retaliatory tactics are not acceptable practices and will not be tolerated by the SRC.” ASPIRA officials did not testify to respond to the teachers’ assertions.

Charter school parents seek new board
Supporters of the embattled Laboratory Charter School sought the SRC’s help in establishing a new governing board. The school’s charter renewal has been in limbo since founder Dorothy June Brown and two colleagues were charged in a scheme to defraud the school of millions of dollars, and parents are embroiled in a battle to stop the existing board from spending school funds defending the accused administrators.

“In Lab Charter, parts of our experiment have gone very well,” said parent Richard Weiss. “But since July, when parents discovered we’d have to fight to keep our school, we’ve had nothing but unanswered questions. Here’s one: How could the SRC or [the charter school office] not replace our current board of trustees in the face of such compelling evidence that they mismanaged funds? How could our board make nothing but cosmetic changes … and expect to retain our charter?” Weiss and others believe there are enough parents to create a new board. “We want our school back. We deserve it. We will retain the part that works,” said Weiss.

Head Start blues
Supporters of a half-dozen Head Start programs asked the SRC to reconsider its plans to outsource more than 2,000 Head Start slots to less expensive private providers. One was Linda Lackey, a 16-year veteran of Frankford Head Start. “A world-class city like Philadelphia cannot afford to lose Head Start – certainly not to be auctioned off to companies and contractors who put money and profits before education,” she said. Another perspective was offered by Mary Graham of the Children’s Village, who criticized “misinformation” about private providers like hers. “Community-based partners are not fly-by-night agencies who want to make money off of children,” she said. “We’re often safer than school-based programs … I’m here to remind everyone that we’re in this crisis together.”

Charter school reforms
Education advocates asked the SRC to rethink its charter school policies and beef up its oversight. Donna Cooper, head of Public Citizens for Children and Youth, criticized the District for failing to provide details of charter school expansion requests. “The School District informed PCCY and others that it would not release the number of new charter seats requested … this lack of transparency raises more questions than it answers,” said Cooper, adding that while PCCY supports quality charters, many that want to expand are performing below District averages. “The District is not in a position to give the charters a blank check,” she said. “We believe that charter expansion should occur only when the District can afford to expand seats in its own high-quality schools as well.”

Meanwhile, David Lapp of the Education Law Center called on the District to expand its charter school office, noting that while charters still generate numerous complaints for “counseling out” challenging students – telling them that “this school’s not a good fit for you” or “we can’t provide the services that you need” — the prevalence of such practices has not been assessed in detail. “We’ve successfully represented dozens of families, many of them referred to us by the District’s own charter school office,” said Lapp. “But it’s not enough to ask a few attorneys at the ELC to protect the rights of 50,000 students.” Lapp praised the work of the District’s four-person charter school office, but recommended that it be expanded to match that of cities like New York (19 staffers) or Denver (24).

Olney’s approach: Strict discipline, personal attention

2013-04-08T14:40:00+00:00

This article was originally published in The Notebook. In August 2020, The Notebook became Chalkbeat Philadelphia.

Sandwiches piled high on a platter, a fresh vegetable tray, pizza, sodas, cake – all for nine young people, most with Latino surnames, most male, who were the center of attention on a recent day at Olney Charter High School.

Their achievement: showing up.

“We’ve begun to see some of our truant youngsters coming to school on a regular basis. And just like we harass them when they’re out, we want to show our enthusiasm now that they’re attending,” said principal Jose Lebron.

And a slice of pizza is the least of it.

Olney is operated by the charter-management arm of the nonprofit ASPIRA under the District’s Renaissance school turnaround program. The main goal is to improve academic achievement, starting with keeping all students, many of them Latino, on track to graduation.

The task is huge: Across the city, only 49 percent of Latino males graduated high school on time in 2012; Latino females did somewhat better, at 60 percent, according to School District figures. On the bright side, that’s a 10-point gain over the 2007 graduation rate.

“I’m trying to improve,” said student Steven Ellis-Herrara, “because I want to get my diploma and get ahead.”

Two years ago, there were two Olneys, East and West, in the same massive building, separated only by locked doors. Mayhem ruled; academically, performance was dismal.

A new course

After the takeover, in the summer of 2011, ASPIRA unlocked the doors, refurbished the building, hired its own teaching staff, and set a new course:

Safety is a top priority, bolstered by 32 security officers.
Disruptive students are assigned to the Success Academy, a school-within-a-school program with strict discipline plus instruction.
Over-age, under-credited students are sent to the Excel Academy to accrue credits toward graduation as speedily as possible.
Teachers and support staff, including two truancy officers, blanket students with both opportunities and timely interventions.

The goal is to boost enthusiasm, attendance and achievement while reducing violence, truancy and dropouts.

Last year, the school’s on-time graduation rate hovered at 50 percent, according to the District. Olney now enrolls 1,660 students, 55 percent Latino, 39 percent Black, 4 percent Asian. But as students get older, the size of their grade gets smaller; the senior class has just over 200 students, half of them Latino.

Other schools have initiatives to promote Latino graduation rates. Congreso operates a program called Exito (Success) at Thomas Edison High School. The program provides afterschool activities including homework help for 9th and 10th graders at risk of dropping out and uses case managers to provide supports for individual students.

At Olney, where the arrival of ASPIRA triggered an influx of Latinos, programming aims to meet the needs of all students, said Lebron, a veteran District principal, most recently at Edison.

To a visitor, Olney seems well-functioning. Students are well-behaved; safety officers patrol every hallway; many students stay after school for athletics and clubs. Yet the streets intrude.

One March Monday, Lebron got bad news from over the weekend: One boy had been shot five times, another had witnessed a homicide, and two others had beat up a teacher at a nearby elementary school.

“The negative force that has existed in the community for years is still strong. That is the challenge,” said Lebron. “We are telling the kids, there’s a different, a better way.”

Testing, attendance and suspension indicators show progress over the Olney East/West setup but also the need for more work. Only about 3 in 10 students met state math and reading goals for 11th graders last year. Daily attendance is at about 83 percent. By mid-March, there had been 433 suspensions, far more than all of last year but significantly fewer than previous years. Nine students have been expelled this year. Olney’s zero tolerance policy means more suspensions, said Lebron.

Strict discipline

If Olney is relatively free of disruption, much of the credit accrues to the program in the basement: the Success Academy. It is run by Success Schools, an alternative-education provider that runs similar programs at ASPIRA’s John B. Stetson Charter School, Mastery Gratz High School (at an off-campus site), the K-8 Young Scholars Frederick Douglass, and elsewhere.

In most District schools, chronically disruptive students are repeatedly suspended and sometimes expelled. At Olney, if the misbehavior persists, the youth is assigned to Success. Last year, 163 students in grades 9 through 12 received instruction and strict supervision in the program. All 22 seniors graduated, said director Michael Esposito. None was expelled, and “none dropped out on our watch.”

This year there’s been one expulsion and one suspension for off-campus incidents; the program’s current attendance rate is about 82 percent, with a roster of 117 in grades 9, 10 and 11 “and growing,” Esposito said. There’s good news: 31 students improved behavior in the first semester and transferred back into the main program.

Other students don’t want to leave.

Joel Sanchez describes himself as a “problem child” in past years, hanging around “negative people.” Last fall, as a 9th grader, he lasted two months at Edison with poor grades and bad behavior and, he said, was on the verge of dropping out.

At Success, he has gained privileges – what he calls “status.”

“This program keeps me on task. And you don’t have kids running the hallways, coming out of class, tragedy stuff,” Sanchez said. “I just want to say to my family, ‘Look how far I have got.’”

Sanchez, Alexander Vazquez, and Gian Carlos, all 15 and in 9th grade, with Raymond Morales, 16, a 10th grader, offered reasons why some of their peers drop out.

“They think about having the girls, about being cool. But they can’t get their job – they’re not 16 yet. They didn’t pass school,” said Sanchez.

“Another thing is drugs,” said Vazquez. “They drop out just to go work on the block, on the corner.”

Carlos said the Success staff had taught him “how to talk to people, how to avoid problems and not talk back … also, how to treat your family, your mom.”

Said Morales: “I used to be very disrespectful. I used to pick fights and get in a lot of trouble.” His goal is to attend college in computer programming. “To get a job I need that high school diploma, and then go to college.”

A first visit to Success can be disquieting. The facilities look sharp, with fresh paint and inspirational posters. But students are required to walk silently with their hands folded behind their backs—a sight that can be jarring.

For parents concerned about the multitude of rules and isolation from peers, Esposito offers assurances. “Parents have been skeptical, but I let them know it’s not necessarily a permanent placement.”

The program works, he said, because the students “respond to the structure and the discipline. Some of these kids, what they walk out of every morning, what they’re walking into at night, they have no clue what’s going to happen to them. There’s a sense of direction here.

“Does every single kid get fixed? I’d be lying to you,” said Esposito. “But our success rate is good.”

Countering frustration

The Excel Academy offers academics to another challenging group: youth ages 16 to 21 who are at risk for dropping out for financial reasons or because of incarceration, pregnancy or other family situations. Excel is run off-campus by Camelot Schools, which operates two other such accelerated programs for the District.

Sadiqa Lucas, executive director, said some of her Latino students had left school out of frustration. “Latino students have a lot of pride,” Lucas said. “They don’t want to go to a school where the school just wants them to sit in a [nonfunctioning] classroom, where they’re going to be bullied, where the teachers don’t know them by name.”

Both Excel and ASPIRA reassure them, she said: “We want you to get your diploma, and then we want to know what you’re going to do next. What’s your plan? What are your goals?”

Daily attendance among 110 students is at 88 percent, she said. She projects that 70 of 78 seniors will graduate in June.

Lebron can cite a lengthy list of programs aimed at truancy and dropout prevention.

To give them extra attention, 9th graders are clustered on one floor, which also minimizes interaction with sometimes intimidating upperclassmen.

Teams of teachers, including those at Success and Excel, review each student’s academic performance and behavior once a week, giving each a rating of “positive,” “neutral” or “concern.” Those ratings are posted, names included, for all to see. Interventions include contacting a parent or guardian.

There are dances, dress-down days, and other activities aimed at promoting good behavior. Clubs range from debate to fishing. Honor-roll students get recognition and pizza. A faith-based truancy prevention group draws ministers and social workers; there are internships and mentoring. The Cradle to Grave program, including visits to a prison and a morgue, aims to shake sense into obstinate youth.

Lebron was blunt with the students being treated to pizza for improved attendance.

“If you are going to go out and make a difference in the world and in your lives, you need to be here,” he said. “You’ve got a slew of people in this building to help you. That’s what we’re here for.”

A biotech pilot program to get students excited about STEM

2013-03-05T13:21:00+00:00

This article was originally published in The Notebook. In August 2020, The Notebook became Chalkbeat Philadelphia.

by Charlotte Pope

Robin Bethune, a junior at Roxborough High School, is intrigued by forensics, and she is eager about a class she’s taking as part of an afterschool program being piloted in the District.

“Last class, we did a lab where we had to figure out who was at a crime scene by looking at DNA fingerprinting,” Bethune said. “I am excited to see the results.”

Bethune is one of 25 District students who are participating in a new biotechnology program launched by Philadelphia Youth Network (PYN) in partnership with the District’s 1199C Training & Upgrading Fund. The program, called Quest, uses lectures and lab-based research to help students gain skills in science, technology, engineering, and math — also known as the STEM fields.

PYN and District 1199C set the curriculum for the pilot project and oversee its implementation, but Quest is managed by the Philadelphia Academies and funded by the pharmaceutical giant GlaxoSmithKline and the Philadelphia Foundation.

The afterschool program, which debuted in January, includes students from Roxborough and Lincoln high schools. Students in Quest were recommended by their teachers based on prerequisite coursework and good academic standing in math and science. Roxborough and Lincoln were chosen to pilot the project because both schools are working with the Philadelphia Academies to plan future career academies focusing on STEM.

The 20-week program runs through May 20 and includes two hours per week of afterschool enrichment classes for students at their respective schools. Topics of study include genes and genomes, animal and plant biotechnology, molecular diagnostic pathology, drug discovery, and pharmacogenomics. Students who are enrolled in the master’s degree program at Thomas Jefferson University serve as mentors to the high school students and also attend the weekly sessions.

On the last Thursday of each month, the student participants travel to a Thomas Jefferson University laboratory, where they conduct experiments and get an inside look at different health-care options.

“We hope to see students gain a new understanding of science and math, where they will be eligible upon graduation to academically pursue college and enter science and math professions," said Cheryl Feldman, executive director of District 1199C Training & Upgrading Fund.

“We want to expose youth to more than just the typical health-care professions, not just doctors or nurses. So project-based, hands-on learning is a wonderful way to introduce students to career opportunities, and what we have is a pretty comprehensive experience,” she said.

At the end of the program, students from both schools will make presentations to parents, fellow students, and supporters of Quest about the research projects they complete with their graduate student mentors. In June, they will travel to Washington, D.C., where they expect to meet with legislators and policymakers in biotechnology.

The program will conclude with a paid summer internship organized in partnership with the University City Science Center, an urban research park that supports technology commercialization and technology-based economic development.

Feldman said she hopes that the program will eventually be embedded in the School District as an ongoing initiative.

That’s something that Bethune said she would like to see happen, too.

Biotech is an up-and-coming field in Philadelphia, she said. "I plan to get an understanding of what it is, and find something in the field where I might want to spend my future.”

Charlotte Pope is an intern at the Notebook.

Renaissance charters meet neighborhood enrollment targets except for Universal

2013-01-28T19:19:00+00:00

This article was originally published in The Notebook. In August 2020, The Notebook became Chalkbeat Philadelphia.

Philadelphia’s independent Renaissance school operators are bringing families back to struggling neighborhood public schools that they have "turned around" — with one notable exception.

Universal Companies, the city’s second-largest manager of Renaissance charter schools, is lagging behind its targets for serving students from the surrounding community at most of its schools.

Universal-Daroff Elementary in West Philadelphia, for example, now enrolls about 54 percent of the public school students who live in the school’s catchment area. Preliminary data indicate that Daroff is about 19 percentage points below its 2013 target for neighborhood student enrollment.

When Daroff was managed by the District, the school served 59 percent of those students.

Unlike regular charter schools, which can draw from all over the city, Philadelphia’s 17 Renaissance charters must first enroll students from defined attendance zones.

The schools face sanctions, including possible revocation of their charters, if — by the end of their third year — they don’t meet specific targets relating to student enrollment, academic performance, and school climate.

Seven Renaissance charters began operating under outside management in 2010. They are scheduled to come up for their first formal accountability review this summer.

The five schools operated by ASPIRA of PA, Mastery Charter, and Scholar Academies appear on-track to meet or exceed their targets for serving students from the surrounding neighborhood, according to an analysis of preliminary District data by NewsWorks and the Public School Notebook.

Another Universal school in West Philadelphia, Universal-Bluford, is also falling short of its target for neighborhood enrollment, by about 12 percentage points.

Universal is also well below its target at Edwin Vare Middle School, which it took over as a Renaissance charter in 2011.

Decision time approaches

The cash-strapped Philadelphia School District must decide this spring whether to continue paying hundreds of thousands of dollars a year to subsidize Universal’s use of District-owned facilities at Vare and Audenried High.

Universal officials declined to comment.

District Deputy Superintendent Paul Kihn stressed that the currently available enrollment data is unofficial. He said the numbers at Universal’s Renaissance charters raise "some questions we would want to dig into."

Overall, though, Kihn said the city’s Renaissance charters appear to be living up to their charge to function as neighborhood schools.

"This is an initiative the District has undertaken that works," he said. The Renaissance idea was hatched during the tenure of former Superintendent Arlene Ackerman.

Three more traditional public schools are expected to be designated for conversion to Renaissance charters sometime next month.

Success stories

Young Scholars Frederick Douglass Elementary School in North Philadelphia is a prime example of why the District is eager to expand the Renaissance initiative.

In 2009-10, its last year as a District-managed school, Douglass enrolled 518 students. According to District data, that was about 58 percent of the public school students who lived in the neighborhood surrounding the school.

That meant that hundreds of dissatisfied families were opting to send their kids elsewhere.

The charge given to Scholar Academies, the nonprofit charter management organization that took control of Douglass in 2010-11, was to bring those families back. Under its charter agreements with the District, Scholar Academies is required to serve a set percentage of the students who live in the surrounding neighborhood.

Under outside management, Douglass’ enrollment has risen to 755 students. More than 90 percent of the public school students in the surrounding neighborhood are now attending the school, far exceeding its target.

Lars Beck, chief executive officer of Scholar Academies, said consistency has been a big reason for the turnaround.

"We’ve focused on trying to build trust with our families by delivering on our promises," Beck said.

Douglass’s test scores have also gone up in both reading and math.

The story is similar at the two Renaissance charters operated by ASPIRA of PA, a community development organization focused on improving predominantly Latino neighborhoods in eastern North Philadelphia.

Mastery Charter is also at or near its student enrollment targets at each of the five Renaissance charter schools where it assumed control in 2010 or 2011.

Missing their targets

Deputy Superintendent Kihn said the District’s first formal review of the first batch of Renaissance schools will likely begin this summer.

At the moment, only Universal appears to have cause for concern.

Its schools’ test-score gains have also been comparatively modest.

"If there were examples of schools that were way off their targets, we would take the action that we’re allowed to within their charters," Kihn said.

That could include imposing new conditions or returning the schools to District control.

The District and its charter operators do not use the same systems to track student enrollment and home addresses. As a result, keeping student information up-to-date and validating student records across multiple data systems remains a logistical challenge.

Still, the unofficial data from the District offer "a pretty good glimpse" of what’s actually happening, said Courtney Collins-Shapiro, the chief innovation officer at Mastery. But once Renaissance charter operators have the opportunity to validate each student’s address, she said, the numbers will likely rise modestly.

A question of money

Two other Renaissance charters operated by Universal could come under scrutiny this spring, a year before their formal accountability reviews take place.

In 2011-12, the District allowed the organization to operate rent-free at Audenried High School and Edwin Vare Middle School in South Philadelphia. The District absorbed $1.8 million in facilities, maintenance, utilities and personnel costs at the schools that year. One reason given was the schools didn’t have enough enrollment to support a cost-effective turnaround program.

After the Notebook and NewsWorks reported on the deal, Universal agreed to pick up $800,000 of those costs for 2012-13. The District, which borrowed $300 million just to pay its bills this year, continues to absorb significant expenses at both buildings.

The current agreement between the District and Universal expires this June. They have until the end of May to work out a new deal.

"We have undertaken different arrangements with different Renaissance charter operators over the last couple of years, and that’s something we have to take a look at," Kihn said.

"Our general stance towards charter schools is that we do not provide facilities."

At Vare, the District’s preliminary enrollment data shows that Universal has only marginally increased the school’s share of students from the surrounding neighborhood.

Under District management, Vare served 35 percent of students in its catchment. Under Universal management, the school now serves 41 percent of those students. The District’s target for Universal at Vare this year is 51 percent.

Universal-Audenried now serves 30 percent of students from the surrounding neighborhood. Its target is 29 percent.

Round four

Kihn said the District intends to seek proposals for a fourth group of Renaissance charter schools "at the beginning of February."

Three low-performing District schools are expected to be converted to charters.

Three more are expected to be "turned around" by the District as Promise Academies.

The new Renaissance charters will be matched with outside managers under the same process as in previous years. School Advisory Councils consisting of parents and community members will vet proposals from potential operators and select a preferred candidate. The final recommendation will be made by the superintendent.

A School Reform Commission vote is tentatively slated for May.

Representatives from ASPIRA. Mastery and Scholar Academies all said they hope to compete this year, depending on which schools are named.

"We don’t take schools just for the sake of taking schools," said ASPIRA’s Calderon.

"We want to make an impact in the neighborhood."

Events: November is Family Literacy Month

2012-11-05T17:08:00+00:00

This article was originally published in The Notebook. In August 2020, The Notebook became Chalkbeat Philadelphia.

Literacy events and programs provide opportunities to improve the educational outcomes and quality of life in our city and beyond. Throughout November, schools, libraries, and other literacy organizations will be participating through read-a-thons, book drives, celebrity appearances, and more.

Here are several events worth checking out in Philadalphia.

Life with Books Fundraiser

Tree House Books needs your help to continue to provide reading and literacy programs for the children and families of North Central Philadelphia. All proceeds from this third annual event will go toward the mission of growing and sustaining a community of readers, writers, and thinkers. Tree House Books believes literacy is a public health issue that needs to be addressed one family at a time, every day.

Nov. 8 (6-8:30 p.m.)
WHYY
Independence Mall West
150 N. Sixth St.
Philadelphia 19106

Literacy Night

Mastery Charter School Shoemaker Parent Teacher Association is hosting its first Literacy Night. The event includes a book fair, interactive writing workshops, poetry, and prizes. There’s no registration fee. Refreshments will be served.

Nov. 8 (4:30-7:30 p.m.)
5301 Media St.
Philadelphia 19131

Celebration of Writing and Literacy

Philadelphia Writing Project’s annual event brings teachers together to share their work with students throughout the city. This year’s theme is “Leveraging the Resources We Have.” Special presentations will be made by PhilaSOUP and TAG Philly, with a keynote address by Stacy Holland, co-founder of the Philadelphia Youth Network.

Nov. 10 (8:30 a.m.-3 p.m.)
Graduate School of Education, University of Pennsylvania
3700 Walnut St.
Philadelphia 19104

First Person Arts Festival

The 11th annual First Person Arts Festival showcases themes of legacy, heritage, family, and identity. The only festival of its kind in the world, presented by Penn’s Master of Liberal Arts Program, First Person is dedicated to the power of personal stories told through all genres of art: stand-up storytelling, theater, memoir-writing, dance, and more. This year’s festival features comedian Janeane Garofalo; celebrity chef Marcus Samuelsson; Philadelphia’s poet laureate, Sonia Sanchez; Philly food writer Rick Nichols, new works by First Person Arts RAW artists, the inaugural PNC Arts Alive Story Day, and everyday Philadelphians in countless programs.

Nov. 7-Nov. 17
Various Locations

Mighty Writers

Mighty Writers presents ongoing programs through its Mighty Academy and Teen Writing programs. They offer this tip for families: "The most important thing parents can do to increase their children’s reading levels and school performance is to read to them. Read story books, newspapers and magazines. Read novels or articles that you think might be a little too hard. Keep reading together as a family every night, and watch your child succeed."

Throughout November
1501 Christian St.
Philadelphia 19146

Spells Writing Lab

Spells Writing Lab presents ongoing programs, including tutoring, workshops, partnership with schools, and professional development opportunities for teachers. Spells develops the creative and expository writing abilities of school-age children through free, fun, and imaginative writing programs.

Throughout November
2526 N. Alder St.
Philadelphia19133

Pop-up and Party

At the Village of Arts and Humanities’ annual fall fundraising celebration, enjoy food, drink and casual conversation with the board and staff at The Village. Live performances by CRED’s poets and musicians.

Nov. 29 (5:30-8:30 p.m.)
CRED Onsite, a pop-up gallery
325 South St.
Philadelphia 19147

PIC Family Book Fest this Saturday!

Celebrate the joy of reading with your child at the Parent-Infant Center’s Family Book Fest this Saturday, Nov. 10, at the Rotunda, 4014 Walnut Street. With stories and crafts for ages 7-under, this event is free and open to the public from 9:30 am to 12:30 pm. WXPN’s Kathy O’Connell, host of Kids’ Corner, will join in with read-aloud stories, followed by a concert with Two of a Kind. Enjoy family fun activities, and bring a slightly used children’s book for the swap table and take home some new stories to share with your family.

Know of any other literacy events in the area? Leave a note in the comments.

New afterschool program puts students on a path to STEM

2012-10-18T15:54:00+00:00

This article was originally published in The Notebook. In August 2020, The Notebook became Chalkbeat Philadelphia.

by Kofi Biney

About 15 million children go unsupervised after the school day ends, according to the nonprofit advocacy organization Afterschool Alliance. But in Philadelphia, many students will now have a new afterschool program to keep them busy.

The free program is called Full STEAM Ahead, and it’s made available to 6th, 7th, and 8th graders at five schools in the city. Funded by a three-year, $442,000 grant from the 21st Century Community Learning Center, the program serves about 350 students attending New Media Technology Charter School, Wissahickon Charter School, St. Raymond of Penafort School, Morris E. Leeds Middle School, and Rhodes Middle School.

Full STEAM was designed to help students with homework, study skills, skill-building clinics, and STEAM workshops, which integrate science, technology, engineering, arts, and mathematics.

On Wednesday, the Philadelphia Center for Arts & Technology (PCAT) announced the launch of the program at its facility, where 75 students from New Media demonstrated one of its workshops.

“We’re working on a project with all different kinds of solids and put water on them to see if they melt or not,” said Karlain Hayes, a New Media student.

Kristyn Stewart, PCAT’s director, said the program is important not only because it introduces students to the STEM field, but also because it encourages them to consider STEM careers.

“We’re doing this to promote them being well-rounded, to see the connection between science and the arts, and to reinforce that science can be interesting,” Stewart said. “We have a large number of students who may be going to college, but very few are going into STEM fields and we need more students, specifically minority students, going into the STEM fields.”

Programs like Full STEAM Ahead will be celebrated as part of the 13th annual Lights On Afterschool Rally, one of more than 7,500 events taking place nationwide to emphasize the importance of starting and maintaining afterschool programs.

The rally will be held at 4:30 p.m. today on the Thomas Paine Plaza in front of the Municipal Services Building marking the start of a 15-day period in which various Out-of-School Time (OST) events will occur throughout the city. These events include:

Oct. 24 – The premier showing of Brooklyn Castle, during the Philadelphia Film Society Fall Festival, at the Prince Music Theater, 1412 Chestnut St.
Oct. 27 – The Afterschool Matters Initiative Practitioner Fellowship Fall Roundtable at the United Way Building.
Nov. 1 – The annual Regional OST Summit and Resource Fair at the City Line Avenue Hilton.

For more information about the Lights On Afterschool initiative, visit www.afterschoolalliance.org.

District hosts open houses for Regional Talent Centers

2012-10-05T12:51:00+00:00

This article was originally published in The Notebook. In August 2020, The Notebook became Chalkbeat Philadelphia.

By Kofi Biney

When you first walk into Universal Audenried Charter High School, you are greeted by banners displaying various positive messages, such as “My future begins here,” “I help others succeed,” and “I will overcome.”

Audenried isn’t just promoting this can-do attitude through its banners, but as the location of the South Philadelphia Regional Talent Center.

It is one of two centers that the District opened in September 2010 to provide afterschool activities. The other is the Northwest Regional Talent Center, located at the Promise Academy at Martin Luther King High School.

Both centers are free and open to all Philadelphia youth in grades 6-12 who attend public, parochial, and private schools.

This week, the District held open houses at both centers to introduce parents and students to the program, provide an overview of the activities offered, and make applications for enrollment available.

The Regional Talent Centers provide arts-integrated instruction, with classes in art, theater, music, dance, and health and fitness. Students also engage in various reading, math, and science activities. Funding for the programs is provided through the Pennsylvania Department of Education’s 21st Century Community Learning Centers grant and with the support of community partner Philadelphia Arts in Education Partnership.

Rahim Islam, president and CEO of Universal Companies, which manages Audenried, said it’s important to give schools resources for the performing arts.

“We have a very basic, fundamental belief that we have to restore a couple things back into education. Performing arts is one of them,” Islam said.

Virginia T. Lam, project manager for the Regional Talent Centers and a music education content specialist for the District, agreed.

“I firmly believe that arts education is a must-have. It’s a core academic subject [and] it enriches the tested academic areas of math, reading and science.”

During the open house at Audenried, parents and students learned about the subjects that will be taught at the center this year. They were treated to a theater monologue and dance number performed by two students from Philadelphia High School for Creative and Performing Arts (CAPA), and a performance from Philadelphia native and former American Idol contestant Dominic Patrick.

Class tours were also held, where instructors conducted short sessions with students.

“I love getting kids creative [and] watching them grow artistically,” said Peter Metcalfe, one of the visual arts instructors.

Morgan Stewart, an instrumental music teacher with the District and a music instructor at the center, said it “is a privilege” to be able to teach and work with students who don’t normally have music in their schools.

“All of these students are extremely creative, but I found that they didn’t have an outlet. This Regional Talent Center gives them not only the resources, but the teachers and mentors to fully engage them in that music experience.”

Trevor Rounsville, a sophomore at Audenried, said he is taking advantage of all that the center has to offer.

“There are good music programs here and a bunch of other classes for health and culinary arts,” he said.

“I just like learning about everything.”

For more information about the Regional Talent Centers and to obtain an application for the 2012-13 school year, call 215-400-5902 or email talentcenters@philasd.org.

Carver students launch mobile app at annual technology symposium

2012-09-28T15:48:00+00:00

This article was originally published in The Notebook. In August 2020, The Notebook became Chalkbeat Philadelphia.

By Kofi Biney and Charlotte Pope

It’s not every day that students get to create technology for a respected political figure. But at the sixth annual Carole I. Smith Technology Symposium held Thursday, three District students launched R3chdev, a mobile application they designed for Pennsylvania State Sen. LeAnna M. Washington of the Fourth District.

Juniors Stephen Pettus and Darren Davis and sophomore Francisco Castellanos presented the app to more than 200 District students and other attendees of the conference, which is held as a way to get more students interested in the technology field. The app will connect Washington with her constituents in a new and faster way while also giving information about her policies and upcoming events to the public.

“I think this technology symposium is important because on a regular basis, every young person has something in their hand — technology,” Washington said.

“My goal is to make them know that we can use these things for other things than listening to music and playing games. It can be an educational tool for them.”

Pettes, Davis, and Castellanos said they became interested in working with technology through Pennsylvania MESA (Mathematics, Engineering, Science Achievement), which is administered at Temple University. MESA, which runs afterschool programs, Saturday academies, and summer camps, is a nationally recognized program that operates in nine states – including Pennsylvania — to motivate and encourage students to excel in math and science.

Pettes admits that he was reluctant to give technology a try.

“It was a brand-new experience because at first I wasn’t really interested in computer science,” Pettus said.

But MESA changed his outlook and now computer science "is something I can see myself doing in the future,” he said.

The three students are actually partners in a creative software company that bears the same name as their new app.

Castellanos, who in his spare time created his own app called Dr. Love, a technology that resembles the popular E-Harmony website, said he got involved in the field because “I just like playing around making websites.”

But he said his interest was first ignited when he participated in the computer science program at his school.

“My teacher introduced us to the Java programming language, and I loved it. Then he told me about this program at Temple, I went, and they taught me apps,” he said.

Dean Harris, who is a teacher in the MESA program, said the key to getting more students interested in the field is early introduction.

“I believe one of the issues with computer science is that people get involved too late in their career," Harris said. "So by introducing technology early in high school, I think they have more of a chance of [staying with it].”

It looks as though Pettus, Davis, and Castellanos are definitely hooked. In fact, Davis has adopted a business plan for new apps. It views "every problem with the three-cubed philosophy, which is create, communicate, and connect.”

Charter boom continues, with 35 high school options

2012-09-27T12:37:00+00:00

This article was originally published in The Notebook. In August 2020, The Notebook became Chalkbeat Philadelphia.

In Philadelphia, gaining admission to a charter high school sometimes involves a scramble to gather burdensome paperwork – not to mention the luck of the draw.

But obstacles or not, thousands of students pursue the charter option. Notebook data show the city’s 35 charter high schools this year expected to enroll more than 15,000 students in grades 9-12.

Three of the District’s neighborhood high schools – Audenried, Olney, and Simon Gratz – are now run by charter groups as part of the District’s Renaissance initiative to turn around low-performing schools.

Those schools as well as three Mastery Charter Schools campuses – at Pickett, Thomas, and Shoemaker – function as neighborhood schools, accepting all students within geographic boundaries established by the District.

For parents and students sorting through options, frustrations abound.

While the District publishes information about neighborhood and special-admit high schools on its website, families must do their own homework to find information on charter schools using the Internet, visiting schools, or attending the High School Expo in late September.

“The high school option system in Philadelphia is more complicated and confusing than choosing a college or university,” said Ethan Bell, dean of students at the Charter High School for Architecture and Design (CHAD).

Other cities such as Denver have created universal enrollment systems – basically, one-stop shopping for both district-run and charter schools. Such a system is being studied by the Philadelphia Great Schools Compact education initiative.

Charter schools are publicly funded and cannot discriminate but can – and do – establish criteria for admission, said David Lapp, attorney with the Education Law Center in Philadelphia. “What does it mean to have reasonable criteria but not discriminate? That’s really the fundamental question, and there’s not a clear answer by a court,” Lapp said.

A recent District review found “significant barriers to entry” at numerous charter schools, according to a draft report. Among concerns: the length of the application – 24 pages at one school; asking for sensitive information; requiring multiple documents; restricting access to the application form; and requiring face-to-face interviews. Several of the charters up for renewal in recent months have caught criticism from the School Reform Commission for application or enrollment practices.

The Architecture and Design Charter School streamlined its application form but still requires applicants to submit two drawings. “Coming to CHAD, you are choosing a high school major. If you’re not at least somewhat interested in art, you’re not going to be happy here,” Bell said.

Other charter schools make the same point: Families learn about a school’s policies and approach as they go through the application process.

According to the District, a simple application should suffice, one that only seeks information needed to contact a student’s parent or guardian, conduct a lottery if necessary, and place the student in the appropriate grade. The process also should not involve any fee or require summer school.

When applications exceed space, the schools hold lotteries – and about three-fourths of charter high schools now report waiting lists for admission. As the District report noted, both the application due dates and the lottery dates vary greatly, further confusing families.

For students interested in the year-old Renaissance charters – Audenried, Gratz or Olney — enrolling is straightforward, and there are no waiting lists. Students seeking to attend Gratz, now run by Mastery, should be aware that school starts in August, not after Labor Day.

Olney has been drawing students from beyond its catchment area, many of them from Stetson Middle School, also run by ASPIRA.

“Kids in our catchment have priority, but we accept the others. We just do more with less if we surpass our enrollment cap,” said Alfredo Calderon, ASPIRA executive director.

Audenried also is seeing an uptick in enrollment, said Devon Allen, spokesman for Universal Companies, the school’s charter management organization.

Students are enthusiastic about new academies in health care, diesel/transportation, and culinary arts, including ties to chef Marc Vetri, as well as a partnership with Harcum College, he said.

The new managers at Audenried, Olney, and Gratz tout improved safety and academic performance since their takeovers in 2011.

“What I tell parents is this: First, your children will be safe; and second, they will excel,” said LaQuanda Jackson, Gratz principal.

Overall, however, the performance of charters here has been a mixed bag. The much-cited Stanford University/CREDO study of Pennsylvania charter school performance between 2007 and 2010 found that nearly half of charter schools have “significantly lower learning gains” than traditional public schools, while more than one quarter do better.

An earlier 2008 study by RAND and Research for Action found a “small positive effect on student achievement” for students attending charter schools in grades 9-12.

Conference on ‘action civics’ meets in city

2012-09-19T16:22:00+00:00

This article was originally published in The Notebook. In August 2020, The Notebook became Chalkbeat Philadelphia.

A national group hoping to redefine civics education held a conference in Philadelphia earlier this month to strategize about ways to help schools prepare students to be engaged citizens.

The effort, called the National Action Civics Collaborative (NACC), is also aimed at working with schools to move civics beyond classrooms and textbooks into real-world projects and activities, especially in schools that serve less affluent, marginalized students.

More than 40 people, mostly from foundations, universities, and nonprofit organizations, attended the event.

"The idea is to work with students from high school through college, giving them the skills, knowledge and wherewithal to be leaders in their individual lives and communities," said Barbara Ferman, executive director of the University Community Collaborative of Philadelphia (UCCP) at Temple.

Ferman, one of the organizers of the conference, works with some city schools through UCCP.

Many students, especially in inner-city neighborhoods, "feel totally irrelevant,’ said Ferman, a professor of political science whose areas of expertise include public policy, community organizing, and race and class. "It is rational for them to turn off and tune out."

One local project is Poppyn, a youth media TV show produced by college and high school students.

"They are tired of seeing themselves portrayed negatively," Ferman said. "We want to showcase them."

In addition to these kinds of projects, NACC seeks to influence how teachers and schools can improve students’ civic awareness as part of the curriculum.

"We’ve learned that the pedagogical approach is important," Ferman said. To feel more engaged in school, students should be able to solve problems in their communities using their own voice and knowledge.

In doing this, Action Civics seeks to move beyond "service learning."

"Service learning that is high quality is engaged in action civics," Ferman said.

Attendees discussed how to measure the success of such programs — not easily done through pencil-and-paper tests — and how to tie it into larger education reform efforts.

"Few states measure what matters in civics," said Peter Levine, director of the Center for Information and Research on Civic Learning and Engagement at Tufts University, outside Boston. He suggested devising an evaluation that would measure how well students learn to solve problems in groups.

One conference attendee was Victor Donnay, a Bryn Mawr math professor who uses math to have his students tackle projects related to environmental sustainability.

Donnay has planning-grant money from the National Science Foundation to expand the work into high schools.

"The idea was that teachers would learn about sustainability and use it in classes to make standard math more exciting," he said.

The conference was sponsored by the Chicago-based McCormick Foundation.

ASAP debuts annual directory of afterschool programs

2012-09-12T13:42:00+00:00

This article was originally published in The Notebook. In August 2020, The Notebook became Chalkbeat Philadelphia.

By Charlotte Pope

In an early-morning event near Philadelphia’s famed Clothespin sculpture, red-shirted staff from the After School Activities Partnerships (ASAP) distributed fresh copies of the nonprofit’s annual directory of afterschool programs.

The guide is distributed as a supplement to the Philadelphia Daily News.

The publication is the organization’s largest to date, containing information about more than 1,000 afterschool programs, including chess, drama, debate, Scrabble, sports, and art. Through participation, students increase academic achievement, improve attendance and peer and adult relations, and gain a deeper respect for guidelines and expectations around student conduct.

Studies indicate that afterschool programs are considered a necessary resource for both parents and students. According to ASAP, about 40,000 of the city’s youth spend between 15 and 20 hours a week alone and unsupervised after school. Philadelphia police reports indicate that the most dangerous time for these youth is from 3 to 6 pm.

The guide is organized by zip code, with contact information and descriptions of each program. The programs are offered at over 800 locations throughout the city, including schools, recreation centers, community-based sites, and libraries.

“Demonstrated research has found that students involved in afterschool programs have higher engagement in school, better grades, and just an overall more positive attitude,” said Reni Ellis, ASAP’s research and communications associate.

“We feel that the directory is a great resource for parents, caregivers, educators, anyone involved with youth, to really find a comprehensive way to see what’s available after school.”

According to Ellis, ASAP also plans to launch a more robust online directory service later this year to help improve its website and strengthen the connection between the public and student enrichment opportunities.

Partnership has raised more than $50 million to give to ‘great’ schools

2012-08-23T22:45:00+00:00

This article was originally published in The Notebook. In August 2020, The Notebook became Chalkbeat Philadelphia.

The two-year-old Philadelphia School Partnership, at the center of the city’s strategy to support "great" schools regardless of who runs them, announced Thursday that it was more than halfway to its goal of raising $100 million from area foundations, corporations and individuals.

At a press conference attended by Mayor Nutter and School Reform Commission Chairman Pedro Ramos, PSP executive director Michael Gleason said that his group has commitments for $51.9 million.

Its Great Schools Fund disburses grants on a competitive basis to public, charter, private and parochial schools serving low-income students for "transformation, expansion and start-up of high-performing schools." It has already given out more than $7 million in grants.

The event was held at the Philadelphia Charter School for the Arts and Sciences at H.R. Edmunds in Frankford, a former District school taken over this year by the charter organization String Theory.

String Theory, which runs the Philadelphia Performing Arts Charter in South Philadelphia, has been awarded $2 million from PSP to aid with the Edmunds turnaround.

The biggest donors to PSP are the William Penn Foundation, which has given $15 million, and the Maguire Foundation, which has given $5 million.

According to PSP, the remaining $31.9 million is from 20 investors, including the Ace Charitable Foundation, money manager Ted Aronson, the J. Mahlon Buck Jr. family, Cigna, Janney Montgomery Scott, JP Morgan Chase, Lincoln Financial Foundation, Ned and Marcia Kaplan, Patricia Kind, the Samuel S. Fels Fund, Eustace Wolfington, and PSP board members Evie McNiff, John Stine, Michael O’Neill and Janine Yass, as well as several anonymous donors.

PSP’s Mike Wang said that not all the donors wanted the amounts of their donations listed, but that the donations from that group range from "the $1,000 range to the $2 million range."

The initial grants made by PSP last fall included $1.5 million to Mastery Charter and $450,000 each to Universal Companies and ASPIRA to help with their conversions of District schools into charters under the Renaissance Schools turnaround initiative.

More recently, PSP awarded $1.3 million to the Catholic prep school Cristo Rey Philadelphia, one of a national network of 24 schools serving low-income students of all faiths. Other grants this year went to the Freire Charter School to support the creation of a new middle school, and to the Sustainability Workshop – a nationally recognized, project-based program for seniors that spun off from the automotive academy at West Philadelphia High and is now seeking to expand into a full four-year school.

Impact100 awards grants to afterschool programs

2012-07-02T12:45:00+00:00

This article was originally published in The Notebook. In August 2020, The Notebook became Chalkbeat Philadelphia.

At a time when public funding affecting many of the city’s youth is in jeopardy, the women of Impact100 Philadelphia have chosen to award their annual grants to two organizations serving Philadelphia children: After School Activities Partnerships (ASAP) and the Village of Arts and Humanities.

The two organizations accepted awards of $100,000 each in a ceremony June 26 in the Village’s Ile Ife Park.

The grants will be used for afterschool programs, just as the Philadelphia School District is facing a major budget crisis, with City Council last week approving only $40 million of the $94 million that the District was counting on to maintain basic educational services.

ASAP plans to use the grant to expand its Philadelphia Youth Chess Challenge and Philadelphia Scholastic Debate League by 375 students. Since 2004, ASAP has organized more than 200 chess clubs and 20 high school debate teams.

ASAP executive director Justin Ennis spoke with pride of one site where ASAP has worked to develop a strong afterschool chess team – Blankenburg Elementary School.

“It started as a humble afterschool program,” he explained. “Now anywhere from 40 to 75 kids are at some point playing chess as part of the team.”

Since the chess program started at Blankenburg, the school has made strong strides in standardized math scores and seen an improvement in school climate, Ennis said.

The Village of Arts and Humanities will use the additional money to produce the next four issues of its new publication, CRED, a culture and arts magazine that gives Philadelphia’s young artists, designers, journalists, activists, and entrepreneurs opportunities to publish content and advertise their businesses and services. The Village will also provide media and journalism educational workshops.

CRED features over 200 works of art from 7- to 25-year-olds, and is edited, designed, and produced by an editorial staff of young adults ranging from 15 to 25 years old.

“There’s nothing like this anywhere else in the country,” said Village director Elizabeth Grimaldi. “Young people are already making a ton of amazing artwork, and artists need a high-quality way to feature their work.”

A writing gem in North Philadelphia encourages students to be creative

2012-06-11T13:19:00+00:00

This article was originally published in The Notebook. In August 2020, The Notebook became Chalkbeat Philadelphia.

Not far from a bustling street and directly across from a heavily populated neighborhood sits a community beautifully decorated with sculptures and murals by The Village of Arts and Humanities.

Deep within their North Philadelphia community, students of the Spells Writing Lab prepare for a daily routine of writing, reading, and other engaging activities.

“I like doing my homework here,” 4th-grader Haaziq Morrow said. “I like the snacks and Frankie, my old tutor.”

Haaziq attends John F. Hartranft School in North Philadelphia. In addition to doing his homework with the help of Spells’ volunteers, Haaziq also enjoys computer time and being able to work on his own creative stories.

The mission of Spells Writing Lab is to get students excited about writing, but not by drilling them with constant worksheet exercises. Spells has a broad range of topics for their students to incorporate to keep them engaged in the art of writing.

During the summer, Spells hosts a free six-week writing camp for ages 7-14. The program runs weekdays from July 9 to Aug. 17. Students can sign up for one week at a time or for the entire six-week session. Each week focuses on a different writing theme, such as graphic novels, songwriting, spy mysteries, cookbook writing, comedy writing, adventure stories, or screenwriting

“I don’t think our kids are coming because they want to hone their writing skills. They come because it’s a fun place to be and they enjoy the topics,” said Christina Dubb, executive director of Spells Writing Lab.

“They come because they’re excited about a topic. We’re really creative because it’s not just ‘come and sit down and write.’”

Spells’ free writing workshops are usually offered on weekends and include a mix of topics "designed to attract reluctant wordsmiths." Spells Writing Lab is open for drop-in tutoring from 3:30 to 5:30 p.m. Monday through Thursday. During these hours, volunteer tutors are available to help students with their homework.

“They teach me a lot of stuff here,” said Dreana Williams, also a 4th-grader from Hartranft. “They help me when we have to read nonfiction.”

Spells Writing Lab was inspired by the nonprofit organization 826, which was founded by award-winning author Dave Eggers in San Francisco in 2002 and operates centers across the country.

The nonprofit offers a variety of programs that provide under-resourced students with opportunities to explore their creativity and improve their writing skills. After Dubb learned more about 826, she reached out to the organization to see whether there was any interest in starting a Philadelphia branch.

Dubb was given the OK, and she began development right away.

“[And then] things started moving fast for them because they were opening so many other locations,” Dubb said.

“They said that they were not accepting any new applications but that I could start my own program, and then eventually perhaps turn it into an 826.”

Dubb continued developing what would eventually become Spells Writing Labs, working and networking with other like-minded individuals who had a similar goal in following 826’s model of getting kids excited about writing.

“We were kind of a traveling writing center,” Dubb said. “We would go to libraries, community centers, and bookstores and just use their space and do workshops with kids there.”

In 2009, Dubb was able to connect with The Village of the Arts and Humanities, which was looking for a literacy component to be housed at one of their sites. Spells Writing Labs opened its doors in January 2010.

Many of Spells’ programs are free, and incorporate other artistic elements such as music, film, or the visual arts to inspire the young writers.

“We have guest speakers and filmmakers and chefs to really share experiences,” Dubb said. “And that’s something we find really fundamental to the program — that we have role models for these kids. It’s not just about sitting down and writing. They get to meet real authors, they get to meet screenwriters and ask them questions, so they can get a sense of different career options for themselves."

Former Olney West lost $4.4M following charter conversion

2012-06-07T16:47:00+00:00

This article was originally published in The Notebook. In August 2020, The Notebook became Chalkbeat Philadelphia.

by Benjamin Herold for the Notebook and WHYY/NewsWorks

The U.S. Department of Labor pulled a multimillion dollar grant at the former Olney West High after the school was converted to a charter as part of the District’s Renaissance Schools initiative.

Also a factor in the decision was that Olney West is no longer considered a "persistently dangerous" school.

The DOL retracted $4.4 million of the grant, said District spokesperson Fernando Gallard. The grant’s total value was $6.27 million.

“It is a substantial loss for the school,” said Gallard. “We’re not happy with the findings from the Department of Labor, but they came up with a decision and we’re following it.”

In March 2010, Olney West was one of four high schools in Philadelphia that were awarded a DOL grant to reduce violence and improve educational outcomes through mentoring, job training, and related programs.

In January 2011, the District designated that both Olney West and Olney East – separate schools housed in a single structure at Duncannon Avenue and Front Street – would be converted to charters as Renaissance Schools. At the time, advocates raised concerns that the conversion would mean a loss of the DOL funds at Olney West, but their concern went unheeded.

Management of both Olney East and West was ultimately awarded to ASPIRA of PA, which reunified the schools when it took over last fall.

ASPIRA’s chief operating officer, Orlando Rendon, said his organization continued to support the programs funded by the grant this year while negotiations with DOL about details of the grant were ongoing.

Rendon said he was surprised to learn that DOL’s ultimate determination was that the new ASPIRA Olney was no longer eligible to receive the funds.

“We’re obviously upset,” Rendon said. “It’s the same students, with the same needs that need to be addressed. We just changed the operator.”

Rendon said ASPIRA is seeking other funds to continue the programs started under the grant.

Other District high schools receiving grant funds under the same program remain unaffected, according to a DOL spokesman.

District eating millions in facilities costs at Audenried, other Renaissance charters

2012-02-10T13:08:00+00:00

This article was originally published in The Notebook. In August 2020, The Notebook became Chalkbeat Philadelphia.

by Benjamin Herold for the Notebook and WHYY/NewsWorks

[Updated 3:45 p.m. with clarification on maintenance staff.]

Even while slashing staff, programs, and hours at schools across the city in an effort to close an enormous budget gap, the School District has been swallowing millions of dollars in facilities-related expenses at its 13 Renaissance Schools now run by outside charter operators.

Nowhere is the situation more pronounced than at Audenried High in South Philadelphia. There, the District has allowed Universal Companies to operate cost-free in a new, $55 million District-owned building since July because the parties have yet to come to terms on a facility license agreement.

Universal is “not paying for anything” at either Audenried or Edwin Vare Middle School, said District spokesperson Fernando Gallard. The District, he said, is “currently managing both buildings and covering [their] costs.”

Representatives from Universal declined to comment.

Audenried and Vare Middle, both “Promise Neighborhood Partnership Schools” awarded to Universal by the District last spring, are the only two Renaissance charters without an executed facilities license agreement.

But even at the Renaissance charters where such agreements are in place, said Gallard, the District has incurred millions in facilities-related expenses. In some cases, the District is continuing to employ ~~pay~~ unionized blue-collar employees whose school positions have been eliminated, not to work so that Renaissance charter operators can have flexibility in how they provide services like maintenance, cleaning, and food service.

So just how much is it costing the District to convert struggling schools into charters?

Despite the budget crisis, District officials say they don’t know.

Asked to put a price tag on this second year of the Renaissance charter initiative, Gallard said only that the District’s most recent calculation – a number he identified as “south of $10 million” – is likely too low.

“The District has an estimate, but we believe we need to do further work on it,” said Gallard. “We don’t want to put a number out there that we don’t believe is capturing all the costs.”

Nevertheless, the District intends to move forward with a planned expansion of the initiative in 2012-13.

Disputed figures

Some of the Renaissance charter operators, meanwhile, disputed the notion that they are costing the District anything.

“The Renaissance charters are neutral to the [District’s] budget,” maintained Alfredo Calderon, the executive director of ASPIRA of Pennsylvania, which operates Stetson Middle and Olney High schools.

ASPIRA paid the District roughly $800,000 to use the Stetson Middle School building last year, said Calderon. Among other things, that covered a District building engineer and cleaning crew, heating costs, snow removal, waste removal, and a small percentage of the District bond financing costs, he said.

“They’re giving us some of the worst schools, in terms of both facilities and academics,” said Calderon. “We’re assuming all of those responsibilities.”

At the heart of the uncertainty surrounding the costs associated with the Renaissance charters are the terms under which new outside managers have been granted access to operate in District-owned facilities.

District officials maintained that Internal Revenue Service regulations prohibit them from making a profit from renting or leasing public school buildings. Instead, officials said, they can seek only to recover from Renaissance operators the actual cost of owning and maintaining the building.

But even recouping those expenses has proven difficult.

In 2010-11, the first year of the initiative, it cost the District more than $10 million to convert seven low-performing schools to Renaissance charters, largely due to higher than expected facilities costs and student enrollments.

This year, with six additional schools converted to charters, new costs appear to have arisen from the District’s decision to allow all the Renaissance operators to opt out of paying the District for some services. In cases where Renaissance charter operators decided to clean their own buildings or remove their own snow, the District ended up having to create other positions for some of ~~pay~~ its unionized blue-collar employees – whose contract requires them to be given a year’s notice before they can be laid off.

“We are incurring costs due to stranded personnel,” confirmed District spokesperson Gallard.

That’s the District’s problem, said ASPIRA’s Calderon.

This year, he said, ASPIRA opted not to keep the District’s cleaning crew at Stetson.

“Why would I keep cleaning people who didn’t clean?” asked Calderon. “I knew we could do it better and cheaper and have a building that’s actually clean and shows respect for the students, staff and parents who are there.” Calderon added that over two years, ASPIRA has itself raised and put nearly $2 million into building improvements at Stetson.

‘Dismantled from within’

Allowing the Renaissance charter operators the kind of flexibility exercised by ASPIRA has led the District to incur significant personnel costs, said Gallard. The District must also continue to pay debt service costs and other administrative expenses for the buildings that Renaissance charters now occupy, he maintained.

But figuring out exactly how much that’s all costing will have to wait until further cuts have been made elsewhere and until newly installed District Chief Recovery Officer Tom Knudsen has hired outside consultants to conduct a deeper cost analysis, said Gallard.

“Hopefully, we can put them to work really quickly,” he said.

In the meantime, said Gallard, he does “not have enough information” to comment on why the District agreed just seven months ago to new facilities license agreements that quickly proved so costly.

He also declined to identify a time frame for when an agreement might be reached with Universal over the operation of Audenried and Vare.

“We’re still working on that,” said Gallard.

It’s not unusual for school districts to mismanage the leasing of their facilities, said Mary Filardo, the executive director of the 21st Century Schools Fund.

“In general, school districts don’t understand how much it costs to own a particular asset, so [they] tend to share them or lease them out at really highly subsidized costs,” said Filardo, a national expert on school facilities.

Subsidizing charters’ use of public facilities could very well be a legitimate policy choice, she said. But districts should make such decisions transparently, with the public being given a full understanding of the implications, Filardo added.

That has not been the case in Philadelphia, where District officials have consistently been guarded in discussing how much the Renaissance initiative costs and have given the public little chance to offer input on how continuation of the initiative should be weighed against other priorities.

Just last month, for example, School Reform Commissioner Feather Houstoun presented a grim portrait of the District’s finances, saying that everything from music to gifted to athletics at traditional public schools may need to be on the chopping block as part of a last-gasp effort to find $61 million in cuts before the end of the fiscal year.

The possibility of altering the District’s relationship with its Renaissance charter operators as a strategy for easing the budget crunch has never been publicly discussed, however.

“The thing that’s amazing to me is the extent to which districts are being dismantled from within,” said Filardo.

Houstoun, who has been traveling, responded in an email that the SRC is "sorting out a lot of issues at the moment and I’m not sure that extrapolations on cost elements would be very enlightening." She said she would do further checking.

More to come

Despite the uncertain costs, District officials and charter operators alike continue to tout the Renaissance initiative as a success that furthers their central strategy of replacing 50,000 seats in poor-performing schools with high-performing seats.

Overall, the initial 2010-11 cohort of seven Renaissance charters showed significant improvements on standardized test scores and school climate while continuing to function as neighborhood schools.

In January, District officials announced that they will continue to expand the initiative in its third year next fall. A list of targeted schools and prequalified “turnaround teams” are expected to be announced later this month.

“The bottom line is that we need to continue moving forward, replacing low-performing seats with high-performing seats,” said District spokesperson Gallard. “We are making a call here that it’s a priority to continue this work. That’s what we believe is the best use of our funding at this point.”

The District does not have a reliable working estimate of what such an expansion might cost, however.

“We’re working on it,” said Gallard.

[An earlier version of this story incorrectly stated that some maintenance staff were being paid not to work. The Notebook has corrected the story and regrets the error.]

Students win social media competition

2012-02-09T15:06:00+00:00

This article was originally published in The Notebook. In August 2020, The Notebook became Chalkbeat Philadelphia.

by Oscar Wang

Forty Philadelphia high school students will spend Saturday at the University of Pennsylvania as a reward for winning a competition sponsored by Knowledge@Wharton High School.

KWHS, launched in March 2011, is a division of the Knowledge@Wharton interactive business journal of the University of Pennsylvania. It has global reach, but one objective is to increase educational opportunity and access to resources for urban students.

“The goal is to create a global platform for leadership and entrepreneurship for high school students,” said Scott Stimpfel, director of educational initiatives for Knowledge@Wharton. The program decided to focus on urban districts because “they unfortunately have…had a lot of resources stripped from them."

Last summer, the high school initiative brought together 140 students from 30 local schools to work with Penn students and professors to develop lesson plans in business education topics including leadership, entrepreneurship and financial literacy.

The lesson plans offer activity suggestions, definitions of important business terms, and access to additional resources. Most of them, along with news articles, career advice, and expert business opinions, are available on the KWHS website.

Another KWHS strategy is to create competitions for students to solve real-world problems. In November, it launched a pilot contest for students to devise ways to spread the word about the program itself through social media. More than 200 students from seven schools participated.

The winners of that competition – from Bodine, Central, Kensington Business, Bartram, Motivation, Business and Technology, and Franklin Learning Center – are the ones who will visit Penn on Saturday for a “leadership day.” They will interact with Wharton students in leadership and teamwork activities, hear an admissions presentation, tour the Penn campus, and attend a networking event.

A broader contest called the “Philadelphia Entrepreneur Competition” is in the works for students and educators to engineer strategies that will incentivize students and teachers to log onto the KWHS website.

KWHS also has an online stock trading simulation in the works. The “Global Trading Challenge” will allow students to manage their own virtual portfolios and gain hands-on knowledge of the stock market. Students and schools will compete with each other for prizes and scholarships and be judged on their trading strategies and the profitability of their holdings.

Stimpfel said the program is the most ambitious yet on the part of Wharton to reach out to high school students.

"I can’t tell you how many times I’ve spoken at a high school in Philadelphia, talked about Penn and students [ask] ‘What is Penn?’ or ‘What is Wharton?’" he says. "An overall goal is to raise awareness of different educational opportunities, whether [it be] Penn or any other university. From my standpoint, we want to bring consciousness to students, hopefully, to continue to achieve their academic dreams and go to college. It is possible."

Afterschool program helps students climb to new heights

2012-02-07T17:16:00+00:00

This article was originally published in The Notebook. In August 2020, The Notebook became Chalkbeat Philadelphia.

An immense collection of books fills the shelves of Tree House Books. From Best American Essays by Annie Dillard to Sula by Toni Morrison to a shelf dedicated to children’s author Lemony Snicket.

Tree House Books, a nonprofit organization in North Philadelphia, works to “grow and sustain a community of readers, writers, and thinkers” through afterschool and enrichment programs. Neighborhood children participate in the literacy program called Life With Books.

"I like moving up a reading level," said 5th grader Dominique Cooper. "I like reading and being able to do my homework."

Dominique, along with fellow student and friend, Ajalee Green, attends Tanner G. Duckrey Elementary. Dominique originally learned about Tree House from a friend at Duckrey.

The friends participate in the literacy program, and when a student reads 10 books or five chapter books, their name is placed on the “Limo wall.” As a treat, Tree House rents a limo for the students whose names are on the wall, whisking them away to an unnamed destination, only revealed to them upon arrival.

Students work with tutors from nearby Temple University.

”My involvement with Tree House started when I was a graduate student at Temple University in their creative writing program studying poetry writing,” said Tree House Executive Director Darcy Luetzow.

In 2006, Luetzow heard that her peers in Temple’s program were doing some afterschool writing with kids in North Philadelphia. She jumped at the chance to join, not fully knowing what she was getting into.

“At that time Tree House was just piloting the first afterschool writing workshop,” Luetzow said. “This was because Temple professor Eli Goldblatt was able to get some of the graduate students in the creative writing program connected with teacher assitantships at Tree House. They were experimenting with what does it take to do a writing workshop after school with kids.”

Tree House was in fact a community bookstore at first, trying out different workshops with kids from the Philadelphia community. Some kids within the community would come, read a book, and then leave.

In September of 2006, Luetzow was brought in as executive director hired at only 20 hours a week. There was no staff beyond her, no financial record keeping, and no mission statement.

That set the point where she and retired community resident Sharon Turner began exploring what Tree House could do.

“So we talked,” Luetzow said. “We had no money, few volunteers, but kids get homework. So we thought why not have tutoring time? We have this room full of books and a table. I literally put a sign on the table that read ‘Tutoring Time: Do your homework in a room full of books from 3 until 5.’”

That idea was a success. The children from the neighborhood started to come and stay slightly longer than before. Luetzow reached out to Temple students involved with Hyphen Literary Magazine.

Some of the students from Temple who volunteered their time at Tree House decided to stay even after their time at the organization ended.

“That was what we needed at that time,” Luetzow continued. “Over time people just seemed like they talked to others about us; students would talk to their roommates and classmates. “

Luetzow and the rest of the Tree House staff and volunteers offer something more to the neighboring children of the community than just homework help and tutoring. It is clear that the students view them as mentors who are urging them to reach for their dreams and set goals.

“I think we get the privilege of working with the most remarkable people in the world, and a lot of people would not necessarily think that of the residents of this neighborhood,” said Luetzow.

Duckrey Elementary student Dominique has been able to participate in some of the other Tree House activities, such as helping to feed the homeless in conjunction with The Chosen 300 Ministries.

"I feel good about helping other people," Dominique said.

The feeling is mutual for her friend Ajalee, who stumbled upon Tree House one day when walking through the neighborhood with her grandmother and asked if she could start attending.

"My favorite thing is the limo trips," Ajalee said. "I like reading and doing my homework too."

“Tree House is a lot of things,” Volunteer Coordinator Lauren Macaluso said. “We help kids with their reading, writing, and thinking, and we’re empowering college students to think of the children in the neighborhood as readers, writers, and thinkers. [We are] creating a space where relationship between college students and kids can happen."

ArtsRising panel discusses arts education amidst budget cuts

2011-10-06T14:29:00+00:00

This article was originally published in The Notebook. In August 2020, The Notebook became Chalkbeat Philadelphia.

by Avi Wolfman-Arent

The importance of cultural enrichment was emphasized while standardized testing came in for criticism at City Hall on Monday as ArtsRising convened a panel of arts education stakeholders. ArtsRising is a collaborative venture between Philadelphia Education Fund, Fleisher Arts Memorial, and Philadelphia Citizens for Children and Youth.

At the talk, entitled “The Changing Face of Arts Education in Philadelphia,” the four-member panel stressed the importance of arts education in an era of shrinking budgets. In particular, they advocated for more teaching artists in schools and increased awareness of the arts role in creating well-rounded thinkers.

In the words of the city’s Chief Cultural Officer Gary Steuer, “It’s not an assembly-line world.” He summed up a broad consensus among the participants that arts education promotes the kind of creative skills needed in a 21st century workforce.

“If we want our children to become people that will get and keep jobs, then the arts and arts education is really critical,” Steuer said.

More than one presenter couched the battle for increased arts funding against the growing influence of standardized tests, noting that focus on tested subjects such as math and reading tends to eat away at time usually allocated for other enrichment.

“Our children are greater than the sum of our assessments,” said Dennis Creedon, the District’s deputy of academic enrichment and support.

The assembled crowd of about 50 in City Hall’s Art Gallery gave Creedon a rousing round of applause.

In addition to Creedon and Steuer, Pearl Schaeffer, the CEO of Philadelphia Arts in Education Partnership, and veteran District art teacher Robyn Miller also presented.

The panel discussion concluded an exhibition of student art work displayed in the art gallery, some of it made by Miller’s charges at John Hancock Elementary School in the Northeast.

Questions and answers after the panel became a brainstorming session on fundraising for cash-strapped teachers and artists in the room. ArtsRising executive director Varissa McMickens, who moderated the discussion, ended the afternoon on a hopeful note.

“This is the start of the conversation,” McMickens said, “not the end.”

PSSA scores released officially

2011-09-29T18:51:00+00:00

This article was originally published in The Notebook. In August 2020, The Notebook became Chalkbeat Philadelphia.

Pennsylvania has released overall and school-by-school results for last spring’s PSSA tests.

Statewide, there was a slight increase in the overall percentage of students scoring proficient or above on the test, and about two-thirds of schools were declared to have met their federal learning targets, or "adequate yearly progress" (AYP).

This year, to make AYP, the target for schools rose to 67 percent proficient in math and 72 percent proficient in reading. But there are other ways to make AYP, including through the so-called "growth model" in which the school does not reach the target but shows significant improvement.

Districtwide here in Philadelphia, 59 percent of students were proficient or advanced in math and 53 percent in reading.

The data also show the persistence of significant achievement gaps among White and Asian compared to Black and Latino students across the state and in Philadelphia.

For instance, in District schools 75 percent of White students and 85 percent of Asian students were proficient or advanced in math, compared to 53 percent of Black students and 55 percent of Hispanics. In reading, 70 percent of Whites and 72 percent of Asians were proficient or advanced compared to 47 percent of Blacks and 46 percent of Latinos.

In Philadelphia, Renaissance charter schools, which were all elementary or middle schools, showed significant jumps in proficiency levels from 2010. At Promise Academies, which are internal turnaround schools, for the most part the gains were more modest.

The biggest gains for a Promise Academy were at Dunbar Elementary, where proficiency rates for reading jumped 17 points to 37 and math rates jumped 20 points to 45.

There were gains at the two Promise Academy high schools, University City and Vaux. But the starting points were very low.

Vaux went from 12 to 15 percent proficient in reading and 9 to 10 percent proficient in math. University City went from 7 to 14 percent proficient in reading and 3 to 10 percent in math.

This will be the first year that charter organizations will be trying to turn around existing high schools. Mastery is now managing Gratz, Olney is under ASPIRA of Pennsylvania, and Audenried is now operated by Universal Companies.

Last year, while operating under the District, 27 percent of Audenried students were proficient in reading and 20 percent in math. This is relatively high for neighborhood schools in the city’s poorest neighborhoods, but not as good as some teachers and students had predicted as they fought to prevent the school, which started over in a new building in 2008, from becoming a charter.

District offices were closed today in observance of Rosh Hashanah so there was no official comment on the results.

The state’s website for viewing individual schools’ AYP results and comparative test score data has been updated to include the 2011 results, with more detailed individual school report cards to be added in November.

Big test score gains at Renaissance charters

2011-09-27T17:34:00+00:00

This article was originally published in The Notebook. In August 2020, The Notebook became Chalkbeat Philadelphia.

For the Notebook’s October print edition on school turnarounds, we took a comprehensive look at the city’s initial group of seven Renaissance charter schools. This article looks at test score gains at the schools . You can also read more about the extent to which the schools remained neighborhood schools.

Philadelphia’s new “Renaissance” turnaround operators are reporting big gains on the 2011 PSSA exams at the seven long-struggling public schools they converted to charters last year.

All the converted schools saw improvements in both reading and math scores. Six of the seven saw double-digit gains in math.

At Stetson Middle School, for example, 55 percent of students scored proficient or advanced in math last year, up 22 points from 2010. Stetson also saw an 8-point jump in the percentage of students scoring proficient or advanced in reading, from 25 percent to 33 percent.

“We’re elated,” said Alfredo Calderon, the executive director of ASPIRA of Pennsylvania, which now manages the school.

In 2010, then-superintendent Arlene Ackerman launched her Renaissance Schools initiative, aimed at quickly turning around some of the city’s toughest elementary and middle schools. Seven schools were handed over to four outside managers for conversion to charters, and six more were slated for internal turnaround as District-run Promise Academies.

This year, six more schools, including three neighborhood high schools, have been converted to Renaissance charters. Three more schools were designated Promise Academies.

The Pennsylvania Department of Education (PDE) is expected to release official PSSA results for all schools in the state later this week. But ASPIRA and fellow Renaissance operators Mastery Charter Schools, Scholar Academies, and Universal Companies each provided preliminary PSSA results to the Notebook in advance of the official announcement.

The preliminary results do not include detailed grade-by-grade breakdowns, which could show variations from the schoolwide results. And at some of the schools, there are more tested grades than others. And researchers generally caution simply comparing one year to the next without taking into account both prior trends at the school and what is happening in the District and state at large.

In addition, there could be slight fluctuations in the final numbers. But the overall picture at the Renaissance charters is clearly encouraging, said Thomas Darden, the District’s deputy chief for strategic programs.

"Turning around neighborhood schools that have been chronically underperforming ranks as one of the toughest challenges in public education, and the District is very pleased to see these gains in academic performance,” said Darden.

Tyhesha Ross, the parent of a second grader at Mastery-Harrity in West Philadelphia, said the change from 2010 and 2011 was remarkable.

Before Mastery took over, ““the system was broken," said Ross, speaking when Mastery released their PSSA results earlier in the summer.

"Teachers were overwhelmed, and students were not given the help they needed,” she explained.

But in the 2010-2011 school year, she said, things were different.

“It was a positive change. I got five text [messages] a week from his teacher, telling me something positive about my son,” said Ross.

From 2010 to 2011, the percentage of Harrity students scoring proficient or advanced in math jumped 17 points, from 38 to 55 percent. There was a 10-point jump in the percentage of students scoring proficient or advanced in reading, from 27 to 37 percent.

Mastery CEO Scott Gordon cited high expectations for students and intensive supports for teachers as the keys to achieving the quick turnaround.

“The big picture for taxpayers and parents is that failing schools can go from low-achieving, violent places to places that parents choose to send their children to in one year,” said Gordon.

Despite concerns from many that the Renaissance charter operators would seek dramatic results by pushing out the hardest-to-serve students, a comprehensive Notebook review of District student enrollment and retention data showed that the schools drew hundreds of local families back while holding on to most of the school’s prior students.

At Harrity, for example, Mastery added 167 neighborhood students to the school’s rolls while losing about two dozen fewer than typical in years past.

“All the evidence points to the fact that these are the same kids,” said Gordon.
At Stetson, ASPIRA achieved its big PSSA gains while adding 68 new neighborhood students and retaining until June 95.6 percent of those enrolled as of October.

Stetson’s principal, Renato Lajara, also led the school for its last two years under District management, when it struggled mightily with low achievement and high levels of violence.

Lajara stressed that the school’s dramatic transformation wasn’t the result of any single program or strategy. Instead, he attributed the change to better, more supportive management.

“The difference is the District gives you a budget and says, ‘Perform,’” said Lajara. “ASPIRA is the opposite. They ask you what your vision is, and then they apply the budget according to the vision.”

The result, he said, has been smaller class sizes, more support staff, an in-school disciplinary academy to handle disruptive students, and a quicker response to the problems that inevitably arise.

Some of the extra supports at the Renaissance charters are made possible by private funds raised by the managers on top of the per-pupil allotment paid them by the District.

“We don’t do the cookie-cutter approach,” said ASPIRA’s Calderon. “We say, ‘OK, let’s set up the ideal school environment, and let’s figure out how to pay for it.’ We go get the money.”

Mastery employs a similar strategy, investing roughly $1 million extra into each of its turnaround elementary schools in their first year. Most of the money is raised from foundations and private donors.

But Gordon said that money represents a one-time investment to initiate the turnaround process. After the first year, he said, the Renaissance charters would be able to function on the same budgets as traditional District schools.

“We can turn around schools, and it can be done at scale,” he said.

Not all of the initial Renaissance charters experienced sharp gains in their first year.

Universal-Bluford, for example, saw a modest 2-point gain in math and a 4-point gain in reading.

Nevertheless, said Janis Butler, Universal’s executive vice president of education, the organization was excited about the progress they made in year one.

“One of the main goals is to make sure you stop the hemorrhaging,” said Butler. “I caution against big spikes. I want to make sure what we do is lasting and there is a steady increase so that we know it’s real.”

District officials have announced a ninth straight year of districtwide gains and said that 110 of 267 schools met their federally mandated Adequate Yearly Progress (AYP) targets in 2010-11. They have also touted significant gains at their internal turnaround schools, the Promise Academies.

But a comparison of the District’s turnaround schools to those turned over to private management will have to wait until the school-by-school results are announced later this week.

All of the 2011 PSSA results for both District and charter schools have been subject to a forensic analysis looking for statistical irregularities that could be a sign of possible cheating. PDE officials have offered no firm timeline for when that analysis or any of its findings will be released.

Student turnover at the high schools

2011-09-21T22:17:00+00:00

This article was originally published in The Notebook. In August 2020, The Notebook became Chalkbeat Philadelphia.

Three of the District’s Renaissance charter operators are taking on their biggest challenge yet: transforming a neighborhood high school.

Audenried High in South Philadelphia is now managed by Universal Companies. Olney East and Olney West have been re-merged into one school under ASPIRA of Pennsylvania. Simon Gratz High in Nicetown is now run by Mastery Charter Schools.

In addition to curtailing violence and increasing test scores and graduation rates, the three Renaissance charter operators are expected to serve the same students who have historically attended these schools.

Skeptics worry that they will seek quick results by weeding out the hardest to serve students, starting with discouraging them from coming back or enrolling in the first place.

To get an early read, the Notebook spent the summer reaching out to dozens of students who were enrolled at Gratz last year.

We ran into many of the challenges Mastery has encountered, including families with ever-shifting contact information and a tenuous connection to school.

Through intensive neighborhood canvassing and outreach – as well as radio spots and billboards – Mastery managed to re-enroll roughly 450 students from last year, said Mastery CEO Scott Gordon. Including incoming 9th graders, they’ve also enrolled roughly 550 new students, 65 to 75 percent of whom Gordon estimates are from Gratz’s catchment area.

The Notebook ultimately spoke with 14 students, most of whom had previously struggled with attendance and behavior at Gratz. Ten said they intended to re-enroll. As of September 19, 10 of the 14 were on Mastery-Gratz’s rolls.

The stories from our decidedly unscientific sample – including the three below – illustrate how challenging this mandate will be.

Final enrollment numbers are yet to be determined, and Renaissance charters’ use of accelerated and alternative placements bears watching. But, so far, Mastery appears to be honoring its charge.

These neighborhood schools are actively recruiting

2011-09-01T21:36:00+00:00

This article was originally published in The Notebook. In August 2020, The Notebook became Chalkbeat Philadelphia.

Avvonya Payne was so determined this summer to get her daughter Alicia into a good, safe school that if need be, "I’d have sold my house and gone into a shelter."

But she was confident that wouldn’t be necessary when neighborhood recruiters from Simon Gratz High School spotted Alicia on the street and convinced her this was where she belonged. "Mom," she said when she got home. "This is the school I want to go to."

"It was like the heavens opened up and God answered my prayers," her mother said as she sat in the office of the school’s new principal, LaQuanda Jackson.

Payne had been unhappy with conditions at Northeast High School, where Alicia went last year. And Gratz – one of 19 Philadelphia schools on the federal persistently dangerous schools list – ordinarily might not have been considered an escape hatch.

But Gratz’s new operator, Mastery Charter Schools, is determined to change both the reputation and the reality. It has been a war waged on two fronts – planning changes at the school and selling those changes to neighborhood residents who might otherwise have their children apply elsewhere. In Alicia’s case, they said she would be walked to school if that’s what it took.

Similar recruitment efforts are taking place at another neighborhood high school, Olney, under a new operator, ASPIRA of Pennsylvania.

Both were named Renaissance Schools by the District earlier this year and both are trying to attract more neighborhood students who otherwise might have transferred out, or tried to.

"We’re trying to encourage more neighborhood kids to come back," says Courtney Collins-Shapiro, deputy chief innovation officer of Mastery.

"By next year we hope the word will be out that we’ve turned the school around … that it’s a good place to be."

Both Gratz and Olney have used mailings, information sessions, home visits, and neighborhood recruiting to try to fill their enrollments. Mastery paid community residents to recruit and even used paid radio spots and two billboards on Hunting Park Avenue. The schools also worked through community organizations to spread the word. (Officials at a third new Renaissance high school, Audenried, say they expect to fill the school without major recruiting efforts).

Remaking the schools’ image is a formidable task. According to District figures for 2010, 60 percent of students in the Gratz catchment area and a third in the Olney catchment area transfer out.

It is a citywide problem. According to District figures, the percentage of students transferring to a school other than their neighborhood school ranges up to 80 percent in the Germantown High School catchment area and is over 50 percent for most neighborhood schools. Gratz is actually in the middle of the pack and Olney has the lowest rate. As students have transferred out, the population of many neighborhood schools has dwindled.

Ideally, District officials say, students would transfer out of their catchment area only if they qualified for a more selective school or specialized school or wanted a program only available elsewhere, such as the automotive technology program at West Philadelphia High School.

In that spirit, Collins-Shapiro says Gratz isn’t necessarily trying to attract those students who might get into the most selective public schools but is instead angling for students who might otherwise transfer to other neighborhood or citywide schools strictly on academic or safety issues.

Indeed, both Mastery and ASPIRA see safety as perhaps the key issue. At student focus groups earlier this year, Jackson says she was repeatedly asked, "Are you going to make (other students) stop walking the halls?"

"The halls are just for a transition from class to class," says Jackson, a former assistant principal in Burlington City, N.J., and a recent graduate of the Mastery principal apprentice program.

In each school, teachers and administrators will have hallway stations at the end of each class period.

Jackson said she hopes for both a "significant decrease in violent incidents" at Gratz and a first-year increase in PSSA proficiency in reading and math from nine percent of the students to 25 percent.

At Olney, hopes are equally high. ASPIRA made one big change immediately: After several years of being divided into Olney East and West, the two schools are one again.

At a recent orientation day, prospective 9th graders and their parents passed through metal detectors into a cordon featuring ice water and smiling teachers and administrators.

"Our students will be as competitive as any students in the city," said Principal Jose Lebron, sleeves rolled up as his voice boomed into the sweltering, cavernous auditorium.

"If you’re not in uniform, you can’t enter the building. Parents, this is one of those times you play a key role.

"My message to the staff is that they respect students at all times." Of the students, he said, he would demand "total respect for teachers and administrators at all times."

Lebron, who is equally comfortable speaking English or Spanish, was a principal at Edison High School and two other city schools before retiring in 2007 to take a series of temporary assignments for the District. He said he had been lured back to full-time duty by the prospect of turning around a troubled neighborhood school.

The teachers, he told the crowd of about 150 students and parents, were attracted by the same challenge: "Every single one of them is here because they want to be here. They were not assigned."

LeTretta Jones, who runs the District’s Office of Student Placement, said that while Gratz and Olney are now charters, "They are still neighborhood schools" and must give first preference to residents from their catchment area and students who attended last year. The District will continue to manage the transfer process for out-of-area students who want to attend the Renaissance charter high schools.

Officials at both schools say they will need to attract out-of-area students at least this year and that their efforts show signs of bearing fruit.

By early August, Collins-Shapiro said, some 240 students from outside the catchment area had applied for a lottery to fill any remaining places. She estimated that Gratz would need 275 out-of-area students to fill its 1,157 slots.

While some parents were saying, "We’ll wait and see if you turn the school around," she said, Mastery had also received inquiries from parents whose students were enrolled in non-public schools last year.

Alberto Calderon, executive director of ASPIRA, and Evelyn Nunez, superintendent of ASPIRA Schools, are confident they can fill Olney’s 1,660 slots despite the fact that only 400 of the feeder schools’ 751 8th grade graduates originally chose the school last year.

Nunez said that at the orientation session, she had spoken to six students who had been accepted elsewhere but were now considering Olney.

And Calderon said that he expected more than 30 students from Stetson Middle School, an ASPIRA charter, to come to Olney even though they live in the Edison High School catchment area.

"They know what we did at Stetson," Calderon said.

Estas escuelas de la comunidad están reclutando activamente

2011-09-01T21:36:00+00:00

This article was originally published in The Notebook. In August 2020, The Notebook became Chalkbeat Philadelphia.

Avvonya Payne estaba tan determinada este verano a matricular a su hija Alicia en una escuela buena y segura que, de ser necesario, "Hubiese vendido la casa para irme a un refugio."

Sin embargo, se sintió confiada de que eso no sería necesario cuando los reclutadores de la Escuela Superior Simon Gratz vieron a Alicia en la calle y la convencieron de que allí es que pertenece. "Mami," dijo cuando llegó a la casa. "Esta es la escuela a la que quiero ir."

"Fue como que los cielos se abrieron y Dios contestó mis oraciones," dijo su mamá al sentarse en la oficina de la nueva principal de la escuela, LaQuanda Jackson.

Payne no estaba contenta con las condiciones en la Escuela Superior Northeast, donde Alicia asistió el año pasado. Y Gratz — una de las 19 escuelas de Filadelfia en la lista de escuelas persistentemente peligrosas — no es una escuela que ella ordinariamente hubiese considerado como solución.

Pero la nueva administración de la Gratz, Mastery Charter Schools, está determinada a cambiar tanto la reputación como la realidad. Ha sido una guerra peleada en dos frentes — planificando cambios en la escuela y vendiéndoles esos cambios a los residentes de la comunidad, que de otro modo solicitarían admisión para sus hijos en otra escuela. En el caso de Alicia, ellos le dijeron que caminarían con ella a la escuela si fuera necesario.

Se están usando esfuerzos de reclutamiento similares en la Escuela Superior Olney, otra escuela de la comunidad que ahora está bajo la nueva administración de ASPIRA of Pennsylvania.

Ambas fueron designadas como Renaissance Schools por el Distrito a principios de este año y ambas están tratando de atraer más estudiantes de la comunidad que de otro modo se hubiesen transferido fuera del área o tratado de hacerlo.

"Estamos tratando de motivar a más estudiantes de la comunidad a regresar," dice Courtney Collins-Shapiro, directora de innovación de Mastery.

"Para el próximo año esperamos que se haya regado la voz de que cambiamos la escuela… que es un buen lugar para estar."

Tanto la Gratz como la Olney han usado correspondencia, sesiones de información, visitas al hogar, y reclutamiento en la comunidad para tratar de llenar su matrícula. Mastery le pagó a residentes de la comunidad para que reclutaran y hasta pagó por anuncios de radio y dos letreros gigantes en la Avenida Hunting Park. Las escuelas también trabajaron con organizaciones comunitarias para regar la voz. (Los funcionarios de una tercera escuela superior nueva del programa Renaissance, Audenried, dijeron que esperan llenar la escuela sin emplear esfuerzos mayores de reclutamiento).

Rehacer la imagen de estas escuelas es una tarea monumental. De acuerdo con las cifras del Distrito para el 2010, 60 por ciento de los estudiantes en el área de asistencia de la Gratz y una tercera parte de los estudiantes en el área de asistencia de la Olney se transfirieron a otra escuela.

Esto es un problema que afecta la ciudad completa. Según las cifras del Distrito, el porcentaje de estudiantes que se están transfiriendo a otra escuela que no es la de su comunidad varía desde 80 por ciento en el área de asistencia de la Escuela Superior Germantown a más de 50 por ciento en la mayoría de las escuelas de la comunidad. Gratz está en el medio de ese grupo y Olney tiene el porcentaje más bajo. A medida que los estudiantes se transfieren, la población de muchas escuelas de la comunidad ha disminuido. Gratz perdió 600 estudiantes en cinco años.

Idealmente, dicen los funcionarios del Distrito, los estudiantes se transferirían de su área sólo si cualifican para una escuela más selectiva o especializada o porque desean un programa que únicamente está disponible en otro lugar, como por ejemplo el programa de tecnología automotriz en la Escuela Superior West Philadelphia.

Por eso, Collins-Shapiro dice que la Gratz no está necesariamente tratando de atraer a aquellos estudiantes que pudieran ser admitidos a las escuelas públicas más selectivas, sino que está enfocándose en los estudiantes que se transferirían a otras escuelas de comunidad o de admisión abierta estrictamente por asuntos académicos o de seguridad.

De hecho, tanto Mastery como
ASPIRA consideran que la seguridad es posiblemente el problema clave. En grupos estudiantiles de enfoque a principios de este año, Jackson dice que a ella le preguntaron repetidamente "ยฟUsted va a hacer que (los otros estudiantes) dejen de caminar por los pasillos?"

"Los pasillos son simplemente para ir de una clase a otra," dice Jackson, antigua principal en Burlington City, N.J., y graduada reciente del programa de aprendiz de principal en Mastery.

En cada escuela, los maestros y administradores tendrán estaciones en los pasillos al final de cada clase.

Jackson dijo que espera tanto "una reducción significativa en incidentes violentos" en Gratz y un aumento de primer año en las puntuaciones del PSSA en lectura y matemáticas de 9% a 25%.

En Olney, las expectativas son igualmente altas. ASPIRA hizo un cambio inmediatamente: Después de varios años de estar dividida en Olney East y Olney West, las dos escuelas se unieron nuevamente en una sola.

En un día de orientación reciente, los padres de los futuros estudiantes de 9no grado y sus hijos pasaron por detectores de metal y llegaron a un área con agua fría y maestros y administradores sonrientes.

"Nuestros estudiantes serán tan competitivos como cualquier estudiante de la ciudad," dijo el principal José Lebrón, con las mangas subidas y la corbata firmemente puesta en el cuello mientras su voz retumbaba en el caluroso y cavernoso auditorio.

"Si no estás vestido de uniforme, no podrás entrar al edificio. Padres, esta es una de las ocasiones en que ustedes juegan un papel importante.

"Mi mensaje al personal es que respeten a los estudiantes en todo momento." De los estudiantes, dijo "que exigiría "respeto total para los maestros y administradores en todo momento."

Lebrón, que habla igualmente bien en inglés o español, fue principal de la Escuela Superior Edison y de dos otras escuelas de la ciudad antes de retirarse en el 2007 para tomar una serie de asignaciones temporeras del Distrito. ร‰l dijo que el prospecto de rehabilitar una escuela en problemas le atrajo y logró que regresara a trabajar a tiempo completo.

Los maestros, le dijo a un grupo de más o menos 150 estudiantes y padres, fueron atraídos por el mismo reto: "Cada uno de ellos está aquí porque quiere estar aquí. Nadie los asignó."

LeTretta Jones, directora de la Oficina de Ubicación de Estudiantes del Distrito, dijo que aunque Gratz y Olney ahora son escuelas chárter, "todavía son escuelas de la comunidad" y le tienen que dar la primera preferencia a los residentes de su área de asistencia y a cualquier estudiante que haya asistido a esa escuela el año pasado. El Distrito continuará manejando el proceso de transferencia de los estudiantes de otras áreas que deseen asistir a las escuelas superiores chárter del programa Renaissance.

Los funcionarios de ambas escuelas dijeron al menos este año que necesitan atraer estudiantes de otras áreas y que sus esfuerzos están rindiendo frutos.

A principios de agosto, dijo Collins-Shapiro, unos 240 estudiantes de fuera del área de asistencia habían solicitado la lotería para llenar cualquier espacio restante. Ella calculó que Gratz va a necesitar unos 275 estudiantes de otras áreas para llenar su total de 1,157 espacios.

Aunque algunos padres estaban diciendo, "Vamos a esperar para ver si la escuela mejora," dijo ella, Mastery también ha recibido llamadas de padres cuyos hijos estaban matriculados en escuelas privadas o religiosas el año pasado.

Alberto Calderón, director ejecutivo de ASPIRA of Pennsylvania, y Evelyn Núñez, superintendente de ASPIRA Schools, dijeron que se sienten confiados de poder llenar los 1,660 espacios en Olney a pesar de que sólo 400 de los 751 estudiantes de 8vo grado de las escuelas del área originalmente seleccionaron esa escuela el año pasado.

Núñez dijo que en la sesión de orientación ella habló con seis estudiantes que habían sido aceptados en otra escuela pero que ahora están considerando asistir a la Olney.

Además, Calderón dijo que espera que más de 30 estudiantes de la Escuela Intermedia John B. Stetson (una escuela chárter de ASPIRA) vengan a la Olney a pesar de que viven en el área de asistencia de la Escuela Superior Edison.

"Ellos saben lo que hicimos en Stetson," dijo Calderón.

The ‘write’ stuff

2011-08-19T13:51:00+00:00

This article was originally published in The Notebook. In August 2020, The Notebook became Chalkbeat Philadelphia.

“I like all of the classes,” said eight-year-old Jada Lowery of the offerings at Mighty Writers. “I just can’t decide.”

When first entering Mighty Writers at 1501 Christian in South Philadelphia you are greeted by a large red and white "MW"sign with surrounding comic book phrases:

"thwack,"
"ooof,"
"bam,"
"ka-pow."

This is the main studio where teens are assisted in SAT preparation by tutors. The studio is neatly lined with tables for the students and their tutors to work. Frames of comic book covers decorate the walls. Shelf upon shelf of books occupy the center of the studio.

Mighty Writers is a nonprofit organization where Philadelphia youth are able to participate in free writing workshops to perfect their reading and writing skills. Each year teachers, journalists, and others volunteer to teach and mentor more than 500 local students. Jada recently started attending. She’s originally from Georgia, and found out about the program from her soccer coach at Chester A. Arthur School.

Mixed-media

“I like it here. It’s like school; it’s educational. The teachers here are fun to play with, too,” Jada explained. She was also eager to show me the illustrations of her masterpiece entitled "JK." The main character is a secret agent.

Recently, Mighty Writers began their comic book club. I was lucky enough to observe this activity where students learn the basics of what it takes to develop their own characters and stories. The class, led by Program Director Rachel Loeper, began by reviewing material from last class where the focus was story boarding and thought and speech bubbles.

Jada is involved in this class, and two others: the Garden Reader Program and poetry class. In the Garden Reader Program, students are given the chance to learn about fruits and vegetables. It takes place across from Mighty Writers in a plot given to them for free by Universal Companies.

In poetry class, students learn about the different aspects of poetry, from similes to metaphors. Students write poems about a specific topic, such as a fruit or vegetable.

Engaging high school students

“Writing is an important role in life and school,” said 12th grader Brehe Teweldebrhan. Brehe, like Jada, recently started attending Mighty Writers. He is involved in their SAT prep sessions. Brehe said that a teacher told him about MW. "My favorite activity to do here is called Teen Lounge. You’re able to express yourself there,” said Brehe, a Southwest Philadelphia native who enjoys writing poetry.

Nafeesah Cannady, a junior at Central High school, agreed that the Teen Lounge helps her “express my free spirit.” She started attending after her sister, Kiarah Cannady. Like Jada, Nafeesah finds interest in drawing and painting. Especially painting.

“I’m an outdoors person,” Nafeesah said. “I can literally go outside, set up my easel, and start painting buildings or produce. Mainly buildings.”

Both students see college as an option in their future. Nafeesah has aspirations of attending Howard University, Brown University, New York University, or St. John’s University. Brehe sees himself either attending Carnegie Mellon University or Temple University.

New location

Mighty Writers has also opened up a space located at 641 South Street where free workshops will begin this month and again in September. The workshops will introduce more students to the creative world of comic books and graphic novels.

The retail space, provided to Mighty Writers in partnership with Arts On South, is a haven for youth and adults alike who are interested not only in the written aspect of comics, but also its art. Art by local Philadelphia artists and students from Mighty Writers aligns the walls.

Guests are welcome to purchase the art with all of the proceeds going back towards supporting Mighty Writers programs. And, every Friday new art is displayed for viewing.

“About a year and a half into the program, we had found that the kids, especially the boys, were into comic books,” said Executive Director Tim Whitaker. “They were taking graphic novels home faster than we could get them. That’s why we created the comic book club.”

Maggie Leyman, development director of Mighty Writers, is responsible for finding funding for this new addition to the organization. In fact at the time of my visit, a grant from Citizen’s Bank had just arrived.

“250 kids are our goal,” said Leyman. “We’re hoping that word about us will spread and that once workshops begin, people will start to come.”

South Street was in the news last year and last month for "flash mobs," and just this past weekend when 50 young people were arrested for violating a new curfew set up in response to the incidents. Both Leyman and Whitaker hope that they can help youth on South Street create a safe, welcoming, educational alternative space.

Olney Charter gets a jump start to the new school year

2011-08-05T13:22:00+00:00

This article was originally published in The Notebook. In August 2020, The Notebook became Chalkbeat Philadelphia.

by Katrina Morrison

Students and staff at Olney Charter High School have spent the past week getting ready for the new school year by hosting several activities and workshops.

The school, which will operate for the first time in the 2011-12 school year as a charter under ASPIRA, Inc., held student orientation all week long for incoming and returning students, and their parents.

Olney Charter High School was divided into two schools – Olney East and Olney West – in 2005 as part of a push for small high schools under the leadership of former District Superintendent Paul Vallas. But under the District’s Renaissance Schools initiative, in March the District awarded both schools to ASPIRA to be run as a charter.

The weeklong fest started on Monday at 9 a.m. sharp with about 150 parents and students filing into the school’s auditorium, where Principal Jose Lebron described school policies, including uniforms, behavior, and attendance. He also talked about extracurricular programs at the school, such as the Honor Society and ASPIRA club, and introduced about two dozen of the school’s newly hired staff, and members of the school’s leadership team.

Throughout the day, parents and students participated in various information sessions and team-building exercises to gather details about what to expect in the upcoming year and to ask questions.

At the end of each day, students joined team leaders and faculty to prep the school for “Community Paint Day,” an event in which the general public is invited to assist students, staff, and parents in beautifying the building and its surrounding community. This event will be held Saturday, August 6 from 8 a.m. to 12:30 p.m.

Hye-won Gehring, the 9th and 10th grade academic leader and facilitator of a session held about student ID cards, said she looks forward to the new school year under ASPIRA because ASPIRA “cares about whole child development and whole teacher development.”

Afterschool program grows food, connections

2011-07-08T15:21:00+00:00

This article was originally published in The Notebook. In August 2020, The Notebook became Chalkbeat Philadelphia.

In a previous post, Peak Johnson reflected on his experience in an afterschool program, and in this entry he looks at an afterschool program focused on gardening. More attention is being paid to healthy eating and access to fresh foods inside of schools, and students in this program spend their time outside of school growing their own fresh food.

What used to be nothing but a huge parking lot for the Philadelphia Housing Authority has become something much more to a group of residents living in the Haddington section of Philadelphia.

Nearly hidden amidst a cluster of homes, the Conestoga Pearl Gardens is full of garden beds neatly in rows, cherry trees ready to be picked, and a park area where children are able to play. The garden is just one of many that the nonprofit Urban Tree Connection oversees. The organization’s primary goal is to engage children and adults from some of Philadelphia’s most disadvantaged neighborhoods in community-based, urban greening projects.

A beautiful sign, decorated with yellow suns and red roses, welcomes those who enter the garden and pass by the large trees that are almost guarding the entrance. Seedlings of onions, cucumbers, string beans, and other vegetables occupy the beds, waiting to blossom as youth ages 7-10 tend to their creations.

It was evident as I sat down to begin my observation of the program that the children seemed happy and carefree: running around and following their instructors from each garden bed to the next and pulling weeds up to make room for their soon-to-be-born onions.

“Before we had actually realized what was going on, Skip Wiener, founder of Urban Tree, had already began planting trees,” says Lisa Barkley, block captain and president of Conestoga. “He had a vision of what he wanted to do, and that included getting the community involved.”

Barkley, along with the vice president of Conestoga Pearl Gardens, Koanta “Ann” Toppings, has been a part of the project for 10 years since it first began. Throughout the years the two have taken notice of how Urban Tree and the garden itself have “really changed the children.” Before, children would climb the trees of the then-vacant lot. Now, the children are the trees’ protectors.

“We plant fruits and vegetables here,” said Jamir Marshall, a student of the program. “After, we sell them around the neighborhood.”

Another student, Melissa Rice, age 10, eagerly sat down beside me, interested in what I was doing with my yellow notepad. I explained to her somewhat of what I was doing and then decided to ask her a rather simple question, “How long have you been attending here?” She took a moment to ponder what I had asked and replied, “Long enough.” Smiling, she proceeded to follow her peers and pull out weeds in a flowerbed.

Pearl Garden’s older kids, known as the "veggie kids," lead the market stand that Jamir referred to. Earlier on, the group would just harvest and give away the produce for free around their neighborhood, and some customers would give the group tips.

“It started like that; now we’re trying to take it a step further and actually build them a mobile produce stand,” says Barkley. “It’ll be stationed on Vine Street, here in Haddington, where there’s lots of traffic. We think that if people see children doing something positive, they won’t mind helping them along.”

In addition to that, Barkley and Toppings wants to take the kids to an entrepreneurial program where they can learn and then set up a bank account. The money they would make from selling vegetables and fruits would go into their accounts and would be theirs.

“We did a little bit at a time,” says Skip Wiener during a phone conversation when discussing the origin of Pearl Gardens. “I thought it was a nightmare when first seeing the space, it was trash and piles of dirt everywhere. It was like a true out-of-control vacant lot that people were abusing.”

Despite the challenge that Wiener seemed to be up against, he was able to receive help from Mission of Philadelphia, which provided Weiner with a bulldozer and removed much of the trash.

The idea of Urban Tree Connection came to Wiener when working with a group of students on a gardening project at Overbrook High School.

Indirectly, everyone who lives around Pearl Gardens is aware of it and the work of the children. Not everyone in the community is involved, but both Barkley and Toppings says that it’s a work in progress.

“As people come into the neighborhood, we try to get them involved in this,” says Toppings.

“One of the things we try to focus on here is eating healthy,“ adds Barkley. “As a culture, we don’t eat exactly right. By this garden being here, the kids have learned to eat healthier, and we hope that they take it into the home.”

Toppings and Barkley agree that it is good that the children get to see the role models that are forming in front of them. They tell of moments where the children will wander around in the garden looking for their instructors. At the moment Urban Tree meets only twice a week, Tuesdays and Thursday from 4-6 p.m.

This program begins with time designated for learning about gardening and agriculture and then leading into homework/reading time. Barkley explained that this program is important, like so many others, because the children need some kind of activity to keep them away from trouble.

“You would be amazed how many people want to help us,” says Barkley. “We are a model of what can be done.”

ASPIRA wants to reunite Olney East and West

2011-05-04T14:05:00+00:00

This article was originally published in The Notebook. In August 2020, The Notebook became Chalkbeat Philadelphia.

ASPIRA, Inc. plans to reunite Olney East and Olney West High Schools.

The School Advisory Councils (SACs) at both Olney East and Olney West High Schools have voted to approve the plans, which still need SRC approval, said ASPIRA Executive Director Alfredo Calderon.

But "in the new year, they will be one high school," said a hopeful Calderon on Tuesday.

Last Wednesday, the SRC voted to award two separate charters to ASPIRA to operate Olney East and Olney West as part of the Renaissance Schools turnaround initiative. The two schools currently share a single building at 100 West Duncannon Avenue. The building was divided into two schools in 2005 as part of the push for small high schools under former District CEO Paul Vallas.

Calderon said that ASPIRA is "thinking outside the box" about the possible structure of a reunited Olney, including exploring the possibility of breaking the school into separate academies, one for 9th and 10th graders and another for 11th and 12th graders.

"It’s going to be something a little different," he said, adding that the impetus for consolidation comes in part from a desire to minimize duplication of services.

District spokesperson Elizabeth Childs, however, said that the District needs to "find out more about the proposal before we make a recommendation to the [School Reform Commission.]"

"The operator cannot combine the charters without SRC approval," said Childs.

At one time, Olney High School was one of the largest in the state, with some 6,000 students. Today, Olney East has an enrollment of about 700 students and Olney West about 800.

This story is part of a news-gathering partnership between the Notebook and NewsWorks.

District releases Renaissance SAC monitoring reports

2011-03-15T16:13:00+00:00

This article was originally published in The Notebook. In August 2020, The Notebook became Chalkbeat Philadelphia.

The District has released the second quarterly monitoring reports from School Advisory Councils (SACs) at seven existing Renaissance charter schools.

Three of the providers – ASPIRA, Inc, Mastery Charter, and Universal Companies – are vying for additional schools in the second year of the Renaissance Schools initiative.

Some school-by-school highlights:

ASPIRA STETSON

Report contains the school’s first publicly released student performance data. "Though there are some mixed results, ASPIRA is encouraged…math proficiency has increased in most grades and reading proficiency has grown in the most critical grades."
ASPIRA made good on its promise to add 75 security cameras throughout the school.
Report cites a dramatic reduction in suspensions: "There have been no suspensions so far this school year compared to over 200 by this time last school year."

MASTERY HARRITY

Report cites strong communication between the SAC and Mastery staff, highlighting the SAC’s role in introducing the school principal to the newly appointed police captain in the region, which "led to resolving some pressing concerns regarding student safety such as crossing guard schedules and the adjusting of the time the signage for reduced speed around the school comes on."
Report praises Mastery’s approach to improving school climate ("It’s working"), but raises concerns about the "high level of out-of-school suspensions – 63 in November….reduced to 27 (in December.)" Because of overenrollment and lack of physical space, the report reads, "[Mastery] had no space to hold in-school suspension or alternate disciplinary options. As a result, the school culture team has leaned too heavily on out-of-school suspensions."
"In closing, the transformation of Harrity has been remarkable. The teachers work hard and really care. Our kids are happy and actually excited to go to school."

MASTERY MANN

"The open communication between the SAC and Mastery continues to be excellent."
Though the student performance data is redacted, the SAC commentary is not: "SAC is pleased with the overall improvements but note the challenges and slow progress of 5th grade students. The SAC is concerned that the success of the children, especially the 5th graders, will be stagnated…without the addition of 6th grade."
The report indicates that the school is introducing athletic opportunities for students, including a tennis program at the Arthur Ashe Youth Tennis and Education Center and intramural sports slated for late April.

MASTERY SMEDLEY

"Our SAC partnered with the Northeast EPIC Stakeholders to host seminars and workshop series for parents to attend," including an informational event on domestic abuse.

UNIVERSAL BLUFORD

"The SAC continues to maintain a good working relationship with Universal and the Charter School."
The reports for both Universal Bluford and Universal Daroff note concerns about special education students being assigned to Universal schools without proper documentation from the District:
"Audits conducted by Universal special education specialists reveal a very significant number of out-of-compliance IEPs that were transferred onto the Universal Bluford student roll as turnaround team contract with the School District of Philadelphia was completed … Many files were not only outdated but it became evident that there were far more students assigned to Bluford than originally identified.
A letter and collaborative meeting detailing these and other special education concerns have been articulated with the Office of Specialized Services regarding the need for the School District of Philadelphia to work in conjunction with Universal to resolve the issues.
The School District of Philadelphia agreed to pay compensatory damages for any student files where legal ramifications were posed by families or advocate groups."

"It is important to note that Universal installed new washing machine and dryer that helps to support parents and students. This contributes to the positive self esteem of the student body and whole school environment."
UNIVERSAL DAROFF

Health challenges for the SAC chair "caused some lack of momentum with the Council" and resulted in a leave of absence and the need for "a more effective exchange of communication" between Universal, the SAC, and the Daroff school administration.
"The council has concerns about the lack of textbooks, supplies, and additional need for tutoring in students."
"The climate has improved with increased discipline being one of the greatest reasons for the change."
Report contains the school’s first publicly released student performance data:
School wide results of 4Sight benchmarks reveal an increase in proficient and advanced levels of performance in reading indicated by 32.26 percent as compared to 24.2 percent levels of proficiency on PSSA results in 2010.
Grade 3, 4, and 7 show a steady increase in proficient and advanced levels of student performance in reading on November 4Sight test as compared to the Baseline test given in October. Grade 6 and 8 fared better on 4Sight October results as compared to November. Grade 5 results flat lined.
Grade 3, 4, 6, 7, and 8 show a steady increase in proficient and advanced levels of student performance in math on November 4Sight test as compared to Baseline test given in October. All grades made significant growth except in grade 5.

YOUNG SCHOLARS DOUGLASS

"The SAC believes it has been an insightful occurrence for Young Scholars. They have come to view the SAC as a resource to call upon. What we need at this juncture is more opportunity to work in partnership on problem solving which could solidify that relationship even further."
Praise for Scholar Academies’ new school-within-a-school disciplinary program: "For example, the creation of the Path Academy was a good solution which allowed students to stay within the school building but helping them to succeed without isolating from the school population."
"The SAC suggests that the School District provide turnaround teams with counsel /training workshop on how to deal with the SACs (cultural
competency). This would possibly help us with our working relationship."

Though the reports are intended as a vehicle for parents and community members to provide feedback and oversight on the Renaissance charter providers, District officials acknowledged that much of the text in some of the reports was again written by the providers themselves – a problem that also arose for some of the first quarterly reports.

Members of one SAC have previously said that because the reports contain questions about things like curricula and school-wide student achievement that they are not able to answer on their own, they requested and reviewed information from their turnaround teams.

District officials say they are trying to improve the report’s format to ensure more direct feedback from the SACs themselves.

An afterschool experience

2011-02-24T14:58:00+00:00

This article was originally published in The Notebook. In August 2020, The Notebook became Chalkbeat Philadelphia.

Sometimes I think of what my life would be like, or how it would have turned out, if I had not attended and ultimately become a teacher assistant with Project H.O.M.E.’s afterschool program, located at the Honickman Learning Center and Comcast Technology Labs.

My assumption is that I would have continued high school and then worked my way slowly through college. It would have been harder, I think, because I would not have benefited from the college visits and preparation for the SATs and the FAFSA application process that the center provided for me. In my opinion, one does not really understand what college is until actually attending. Books, tuition, computer fees, food, – everything adds up. But I got a taste of what to expect having gone to PH’s program.

Before attending PH’s program, my days were simply full of homework and watching television. There was never much of a reason for me to really venture outside and play with the children of my neighborhood; they were pretty much into the same routine.

If any of my peers did come outside, it was usually to either imitate their older siblings, who were not really good role models, or to hang out on the corners. To be honest, there was not that much for a young person to get involved in, not until afterschool programs and recreational centers became publicized by word of mouth.

I began attending PH’s program when it was at its first site at Saint Elizabeth’s Rectory. It was exciting because what we were moving into was so very impressive. A 38,000-square-foot building with a floor designated for teenagers.

When the afterschool program was at Saint Elizabeth, instructors Benjamin Harris and Jeff Wiesner were already beginning to mold the minds of my peers and me. They were not only teaching us how to work with digital video cameras, but formed connections with us and became our friends.

If there was anything bothering us or anything that we needed to vent about, Ben and Jeff were there. And I felt that I could be there for them as well.

Both Ben and Jeff spent a lot of time getting to know us, plus they were working on piecing together the North Philly Teens Magazine turned newspaper. When Ben asked in the summer of 2003 if anyone wanted to help him with the newspaper, I immediately volunteered. For the next week or so, Ben and I continued working on the newspaper, laying out the paper from pictures to advertisements.

It was strange at the time, but what amazed me was not the work that I was producing, but that I was working on an activity with an adult, and I enjoyed it. That connection continued to develop as we made our way to the Honickman Learning Center and Comcast Technology Labs in 2004.

By latching onto Ben, I began to open up more around my peers as well, even joking with them. I even knew what I wanted to be in life – a writer/graphic designer. I felt comfortable at this program; safe, even more than I felt at school.

As time progressed and the program seemed to be settling nicely into the HLC, Ben announced that he would be departing to pursue his love of photography. A lot of us were crushed when we heard this. Some of us even dropped out of the program altogether.

That’s how much of an impact Ben was making in our young lives. Soon after, the program manager, Jacqui Lipson, also departed. She was also someone who any program participants could go to if anything was troubling us.

Pretty soon I was looking at an entirely different program. Most of my friends left, feeling that without Ben or Jacqui, the program would never be the same. And for a short period of time it wasn’t. But some of the new instructors who arrived were actually awe-inspiring. They understood us just like Ben and Jacqui did. They listened to us when we had suggestions about certain projects such as, The North Philly Metropolis newspaper, or how we felt the program was not meeting our expectations.

What I believed was that since so many of the former staff were gone, it was my job to demonstrate to the new staff what Ben and Jacqui taught us. This is how I grew into more of a leadership role, both in the newspaper and the afterschool program. And then watching new instructors such as Steve Bozzone and Stephanie Renee be able to form these relationships with us, I began thinking about the idea of teaching some day.

That day actually came pretty quickly when the director of the HLC, Cindy Ferguson, approached me and asked if I would be interested in becoming a teacher assistant for the K-6 afterschool program. It took me only a day or so to think about the offer. I never saw myself as teaching younger kids and really wanted to assist the older kids on the teen floor.

When finally accepting the offer I was placed in a 2nd grade classroom, which made me slightly nervous since I had no experience with working with children. I did not engage with them as much, mainly because I was still trying to figure out how. Watching my co-workers didn’t always help since some of them screamed at their classes and were not connecting much with the children.

It was not until my class moved onto 3rd grade that I began loosening up slightly. I was assigned to the 3rd grade classrooms with my previous students and decided that I would begin to get to know them a little more. Often when they would arrive at the program, I would not just help them with their homework, but also ask them about their day. Surprisingly there were a few who had really opened up to me, and still do to this very day.

I’m not as involved with the afterschool program as much since I left four years ago, but it did have a great impact on me, and I continue to visit. The highlights of these visits would have to be the beaming faces of kids that I helped teach and who I tried to be there for, hopefully like Ben did with me. I think I made a lasting impression.

What other afterschool programs would you recommend we write about? Feel free to leave a comment or email us. Please share your own experiences as a participant, parent, or teacher.

Year two Renaissance plans: Bigger and pricier

2011-02-02T19:32:00+00:00

This article was originally published in The Notebook. In August 2020, The Notebook became Chalkbeat Philadelphia.

In a plan that will expand Superintendent Arlene Ackerman’s Renaissance Schools initiative to encompass 31 schools and 12 percent of the District’s students, 18 more low-performing schools have been targeted for radical overhauls.

"Everyone knows this comes back to me," said Ackerman in announcing the move. "These schools are under my very close watch and care."

The second year of the Renaissance initiative features two new turnaround models, a new process for selecting and assigning schools, and an unprecedented new partnership with South Philadelphia-based community development organization Universal Companies.

This year’s Renaissance plan calls for expanding both of the original turnaround models. Six schools will join the seven existing Renaissance charters under the "Renaissance Match" model, and seven schools will join the six existing District-run "Traditional" Promise Academies.

A gentler approach to turnaround will be tried at three schools that will become "Innovation" Promise Academies. Finally, two schools are slated to become charters as "Promise Neighborhood Partnership Schools."

If the year two expansion proceeds as planned, roughly 10,000 students would attend Renaissance charters, and almost 9,000 would attend Promise Academies.

The District also changed the criteria it used to select Renaissance schools.

Last year’s initial group of 14 "Renaissance-eligible schools" was selected strictly on the basis of their School Performance Index (SPI) ratings. This year, officials say they considered a range of additional factors, including schools’ dropout rates, school climate data, teacher attrition, and feeder patterns.

The targeted schools will extend the initiative into new areas of South, North, and Northwest Philadelphia.

Ten of the 18 new Renaissance schools are neighborhood high schools. Five of those – Audenried, Gratz, King, Olney East, and Olney West – are slated to become charters.

Three more will join University City and Vaux as Traditional Promise Academies.

And South Philadelphia, which was rocked by racial violence last year, but has seen recent improvements, is one of two neighborhood high schools that will become Innovation Promise Academies.

"I don’t think it’s a wise decision," said Duong Ly, a student activist and senior at South Philadelphia.

"We are making progress, [but] they decided to mess around with the dynamics of the school [without] talking to us beforehand."

In a departure from the process used during the first year of the Renaissance initiative, schools were not given an option as to whether to seek Promise Academy status.

Assistant Superintendent of Schools Penny Nixon said the District used demographic and performance data to identify the schools that were most similar to existing Promise Academies and most likely to benefit from that turnaround model.

"It’s so frustrating. We were supposed to be involved in the process, but there’s been no communication," said Shirley Randleman, president of the 52nd Street Business Association and chair of the School Advisory Council (SAC) at West Philadelphia High School, which the District designated as a Traditional Promise Academy.

The West SAC voted against becoming a Promise Academy last year.

Despite changes in the process for assigning schools to turnaround models, Ackerman said "Parent, community, and staff input will continue to be what distinguishes this initiative from others."

Like last year, SACs at the six schools slated for the Renaissance Match process will have the opportunity to evaluate potential turnaround teams and recommend a preferred provider between February and March.

Among the seven organizations approved by the District to manage schools are three existing Renaissance providers: ASPIRA, Inc., Mastery Charter Schools, and Universal Companies, and some new faces.

SAC recommendations will be due to Superintendent Ackerman in mid-March. As with last year, Ackerman will be the one to finalize recommendations on provider-school matches, which will ultimately be voted on by the School Reform Commission later in the spring.

But the District will bypass this public matching process at the other two Renaissance schools slated to become charters. As part of their Promise Neighborhood Partnership, the District has selected Universal Companies to manage Audenried High School and Edwin Vare Middle School, a move that will require SRC approval.

The partnership is the result of a federal planning grant Universal has received to begin turning the Point Breeze and Grays Ferry neighborhoods of South Philadelphia into a "Promise Neighborhood" with a comprehensive set of family services, modeled on the Harlem Children’s Zone.

"We’re happy with our partnership with Universal, [and] we believe they’re worthy of our trust with two more schools," Ackerman said.

Associate Superintendent Diane Castelbuono added that Universal has already led an "enormous public process" in applying for the Promise Neighborhood planning grant.

But Universal President/CEO Rahim Islam said that process has not yet included public discussion of Vare and Audenried becoming charters.

"We’ve already met with most of the [community] leaders, [but] not on the issue of Vare and Audenried being charters – really, that was just incidental," said Islam. "Our next step is to actively engage the community in this process."

The District will also coordinate with Universal to provide services to Alcorn and Smith Elementary Schools, both of which are part of Audenried’s feeder pattern and both of which will become Traditional Promise Academies.

The District does not yet have a cost estimate for the second year of the initiative, said spokesperson Elizabeth Childs.

The overall price tag for the first year of the Renaissance initiative was $20 million.

About half of that went to operate the current Promise Academies, where $9.6 million – about $3,600 in additional per pupil funding – paid for extra supports in those six schools. Most of the expense was due to increased staff compensation for the longer school day and year.

Despite widespread concerns about an enormous budget shortfall, District officials said the Renaissance initiative would move forward.

"We have an absolute moral obligation to turn around these schools," said Associate Superintendent David Weiner.

"Any potential budget issues are not going to stop this [Renaissance] process."

The District will be hosting community meetings about year two of the Renaissance Schools initiative. For more details and to see a complete timeline visit the District’s site.

Announcing 18 more Renaissance Schools, District questioned on cost, community input

2011-01-26T00:08:00+00:00

This article was originally published in The Notebook. In August 2020, The Notebook became Chalkbeat Philadelphia.

Despite controversy about a looming budget shortfall, School District of Philadelphia Superintendent Arlene Ackerman – citing progress with her first cohort of 13 turnaround schools – is moving ahead with plans to dramatically overhaul a second, even larger group of low-performing schools.

Her announcement of this next phase coincided with the release of financial figures by the District showing a much higher price tag for the first round of schools than previously reported.

Tuesday afternoon, District officials revealed their plans to name 18 new Renaissance schools, including seven new District-run Promise Academies, three “Innovation” Promise Academies where reconstitution of staff is not required, and two schools to be run as charters by Universal Companies as part of an unprecedented new neighborhood partnership. Six additional schools will be matched with and turned over to outside managers.

“Last year, people didn’t believe this would work. I believed that it would,” said Ackerman. “When you go into any of the [existing] Renaissance schools, you feel that the culture has shifted.”

At the seven Renaissance charters overhauled last fall, early data indicate that enrollment and average daily attendance are up while serious incidents are down. In addition, while the first batch of Promise Academies have not been trouble-free, predictive test results point to rising reading scores at all six, and rising math scores at four of the six schools.

Assistant Superintendent of Schools Penny Nixon said the District is particularly proud of its results at its two high school Promise Academies, Vaux and University City.

“The early returns show that attendance is drastically up, and we see a 50 percent decrease in the dropout rate for those schools,” said Nixon.

Hours after explaining its four models and naming the 18 targeted schools, the District provided new details about the cost of the Promise Academies and Renaissance charters.

Ackerman has publicly stated that each Promise Academy costs approximately $1 million to operate. But Tuesday, District staffers pegged the one-year amount invested for the initiative in six schools at nearly $9.7 million. Much of that cost is attributable to increased staff compensation, including a longer day and year.

With the six schools serving a combined 2,700 students, the cost equates to about $3,600 in additional per pupil funding at the Promise Academies. That’s more than four times the amount of extra per pupil funding the District provided to education management organizations back in 2002, in Philadelphia’s largest and most turbulent foray into school turnaround.

In addition, this year’s seven Renaissance charters have cost the District $10.4 million, bringing the total first-year price tag for the initiative at all 13 schools to $20 million.

Next year’s planned 18-school Renaissance cohort, including 10 high schools, is much larger and potentially more costly. The 10 proposed Promise Academies – including West Philadelphia and South Philadelphia high schools – serve a total of nearly 6,000 students.

Though the District faces the loss of a quarter billion dollars in federal stimulus dollars next year and the anticipated 2011-12 budget gap is even larger than that, District officials were resolute in their conviction that the Renaissance initiative will continue to be funded.

“We can’t create a system of great schools unless we turn around our lowest-performing schools," said Associate Superintendent Diane Castelbuono. “We are determined to figure out a way to make this initiative happen, and so that’s what we will budget for next year. These 18 schools will be turned around.”

Public school parent and Notebook leadership board member Helen Gym, however, said she’d like to see a lot more transparency in the District’s Renaissance process.

“I don’t think anyone questions the kind of investments we want to see in struggling school communities,” said Gym, who has worked closely with Asian students at South Philadelphia High School this past year.

“What we want is to make sure of is that they’re sustainable. Given the fact that there are some severe budget decisions to be made, some of which may involve school closings, the District needs to be honest about what the financial picture is – and this is a conversation that needs to happen in public.”

The District also provided more details about its plans for schools covered by its new partnership with South Philadelphia-based community development organization Universal Companies. As part of a joint effort to turn the Point Breeze and Grays Ferry sections of South Philadelphia into a Promise Neighborhood modeled on the Harlem Children’s Zone, the District will award Universal management of Audenried High School and Edwin Vare Middle School.

“We know you can’t really revitalize these communities unless you transform the school,” said Castelbuono. “This provides a unique opportunity for us to partner with a company that has a strong presence in the community and to really leverage our skills together to really transform the entire geographic region there.”

As part of their Promise Neighborhood partnership, the District is handing over management of those two schools directly to Universal, skipping the process of community and parent review that has previously been used in the Renaissance initiative.

“Universal Companies did an enormous public process when they applied for the Promise Neighborhood Partnership grant with the federal government,” said Castelbuono. “They are a huge presence in that community; they’ve been there for decades.”

This will be Universal’s second chance with Vare, this time as a charter. The school just last fall reverted to District control after eight years under a management contract with Universal as an outgrowth of the 2002 state takeover. Vare was one of 16 low-performing schools where the District terminated contracts with outside managers in 2010, citing insufficient progress.

Philadelphia Federation of Teachers President Jerry Jordan slammed both the continued reliance on charter conversions in the second round of Renaissance Schools and the absence of “input from parents, teachers, students and the communities these schools serve.”

“Instead of improving community engagement in schools, families, educators and communities have been marginalized,” Jordan said in a statement responding to the Renaissance plan.

While Universal isn’t being asked to win over parents at Vare and Audenried, at the six other planned Renaissance charter schools, School Advisory Councils will again be given the opportunity to interview prospective management organizations and then make a recommendation to Superintendent Ackerman.

The District announced the approved organizations on Tuesday night. Included on the list were the three current Renaissance providers – ASPIRA of Pennsylvania, Inc., Mastery Charter Schools, and Universal – and four others, including the New York-based for-profit company Mosaica Turnaround Partners.

"We’re delighted to get selected as a provider,” said Mastery CEO Scott Gordon. “We’re really proud of the progress this year’s Renaissance schools have made – all three are on their way to becoming successful schools." Counting its three Renaissance Schools, Mastery now operates seven charters in Philadelphia.

The public matching process between Renaissance charters and potential turnaround teams is set to be completed by mid-March, with Superintendent Ackerman presenting her final recommendations to the School Reform Commission later this spring.

The plans to assigns schools to outside providers are all subject to approval by the SRC.

The turnaround process at the 18 schools is likely to displace hundreds of teachers. District officials said they could not guarantee that the affected teachers would be able to secure positions in the District next year, given the anticipated budget shortfall. But they said no new teachers will be hired until teachers with seniority are placed.

PFT President Jordan assured members that “the PFT contract lays out a framework for an orderly system of transfers and reassignments and our staff will be in affected schools this week."

“The PFT will monitor the process daily to make sure that members have every opportunity to be reassigned,” he said.

Paul Socolar contributed additional reporting for this article.

Benjamin Herold also produced a radio companion to this piece for WHYY.

7 Renaissance provider finalists named

2011-01-25T20:09:00+00:00

This article was originally published in The Notebook. In August 2020, The Notebook became Chalkbeat Philadelphia.

Three current Renaissance School managers are joined by four newcomers as the approved provider finalists who will be vying to turn around this year’s cohort of six "Renaissance Match" schools, the School District announced Tuesday evening. The seven successfully completed a request for proposal process. They include:

Current managers:

Newcomers:

The providers will have an opportunity to manage – as charters or contract schools – one or more of the six "Renaissance Match" schools: Gratz, King, Olney East and Olney West high schools and Birney and Clymer elementary schools. Birney is a feeder school for Olney, and Clymer feeds into Gratz.

School advisory councils at each of these schools will recommend a provider to Superintendent Arlene Ackerman by mid-March. She then will make a proposal to the School Reform Commission this spring.

One drama here is that Foundations Inc. will be vying to maintain its management of King High School, which it has run under contract since 2003 as an education management organization. Foundations previously tried to convert King to a charter but failed to gain District approval for the change.

Three other applicants had made the first cut: Scholar Academies of Philadelphia (operator of Young Scholars-Douglass), Green Dot America, of Los Angeles, and Global Partnerships Schools, Inc. of New York. Scholar Academies and Green Dot opted not to respond to the District’s request for full proposals and Global Partnership Schools did not make the District’s final cut.

New in-school disciplinary academy draws praise, raises questions

2010-12-02T16:50:00+00:00

This article was originally published in The Notebook. In August 2020, The Notebook became Chalkbeat Philadelphia.

Wilfredo Cruz is seated in the back of his 8th grade English class, scanning the room.

When he spots another student with his head down, Wilfredo whispers the boy’s name, trying to get his attention.

Last year, this would have been the start of trouble. As a 7th grader at John B. Stetson Middle School, Wilfredo would often simply walk out of class to wander the halls. He was suspended multiple times and given detention countless others, for offenses ranging from writing graffiti on school property to fighting to bringing a BB gun to school.

He was not alone – there were 54 “serious incidents” reported at Stetson last year, including 21 assaults on staff and 20 assaults on students.

This year, however, things are different – for Wilfredo and for Stetson.

“I couldn’t get [Wilfredo] to stay in his class last year,” marvels Principal Renato Lajara. “But now he’s a leader up there; he runs that whole floor.”

When Wilfredo gains the attention of the sleepy student in his English class, he tersely tells the boy to sit up straight. Wordlessly, the student complies. The teacher continues her lesson without interruption.

Serving the same students

“That whole floor” is Stetson’s new “Success Academy,” a school-within-a-school disciplinary academy operated by a for-profit company, Success Schools, on the previously unused fourth floor of the ancient building at B & Allegheny Streets in Kensington.

Wilfredo is one of 66 students with a history of violent or persistently disruptive behavior who have been assigned to the new program so far this year. Forty-eight of the 66 students are boys.

Although some advocates have expressed concern over aspects of the Success Academy approach – including the use of “physical holds” on some children– the model has gotten positive early reviews from many parents and school staff.

“I love every minute of it,” says Wilfredo’s mother, Kissy Soto, 31.

The academy was planned last summer, after Stetson was awarded to ASPIRA of PA as part of the School District’s Renaissance Schools initiative. As one of seven low-performing neighborhood schools that became Renaissance charter schools this fall, ASPIRA Stetson is largely free from District mandates – with the notable exception that it must continue to serve the same children from the surrounding community, including those with a history of profound behavioral problems.

“Some of the kids have issues with violence,” says ASPIRA CEO Alfredo Calderon. “There’s one student who assaulted a staff member here last year, was sent to [an alternative disciplinary school], and is now back. If a kid is willing to assault a staff member, how do you deal with that?”

As part of its efforts to serve all these students, ASPIRA contracted with the newly formed Success Schools for an amount “under $500,000,” says Calderon.

Success Schools was founded last April by former executives from Camelot Schools, which runs seven disciplinary and alternative schools for the School District. The new company has already had discussions about its disciplinary program with other Renaissance charter operators.

The children in the Success Academy are still ASPIRA Stetson students. They have certified teachers who are ASPIRA employees, who follow the same curriculum and pacing schedule being used in the rest of the school, and who share common planning time with the other teachers.

Additional supports include class sizes of 12-15 students and a dedicated special education teacher for the floor. Students eat lunch in the main cafeteria and are eligible to participate on athletic teams. They may be “restored” to regular classrooms if they regularly attend school, get good grades, and exhibit good behavior for an extended period.

“We’re not warehousing kids up there,” stresses Calderon. “We’re educating them.”

Success Schools directly manages the day-to-day climate issues on the fourth floor and also works on the culture in the building overall. Students on the fourth floor are in an intensely structured, disciplined environment closely modeled on those found at disciplinary schools.

Until they earn staff members’ trust, students may not wear jewelry and must walk “in protocol” – silent, with their hands clasped behind their backs. And staff on occasion may put students in “physical holds” – upright against a wall, with their arms held behind their backs. That has happened 15-20 times so far this fall, according to Robert Lysek, the chief operations officer at Success Schools.

“Our model is very systematic,” says Lysek, previously the vice president for operations at Camelot and, before that, a police officer in the gang suppression unit in Tampa, Florida.

“Our belief is that without discipline and structure, you cannot educate, period,” he adds.

‘You are here because I love you’

Principal Lajara recognizes that some might see the Success Academy as too strict. But those people aren’t familiar with Stetson’s history and the larger benefits offered by the new academy, he says.

“I know that it is unsettling for people to see when they come in from the outside,” says Lajara, who was kept on by ASPIRA and is now in his third year at the school. “But people need to understand the reality. [Last year], it was just putting out fires all the time. Our teachers were exhausted. … You lose focus on those kids who really want education.”

ASPIRA Stetson teachers from regular classrooms who spoke with the Notebook reported major improvements in their classroom environment this year.

“I’m not dealing with students trying to fight each other, so I can encourage kids to do their homework,” says third-year teacher Alexandra McCoy. “I’m fighting battles that are more important.”

Lajara hopes the Success Academy will eliminate the high number of Stetson students who have historically been transferred out to disciplinary schools–students who he says often end up dropping out because of the long commute and fears for their safety.

“This way, we can watch them ourselves,” says Lajara. “They know they are not being shunned. I give them the same message all the time: ‘You are here because I love you.’”

Students are referred to the fourth floor as the result of either “non-negotiable” offenses such as fighting or as the result of “serious and persistent problems.”

But prior to the beginning of the school year, ASPIRA Stetson administrators used past student disciplinary records and other data to preemptively assign to the Success Academy 55 students with “a history of making it difficult for themselves and other students to learn,” Lajara says.

David Lapp of the Education Law Center said that it is open to question whether a student can be punished for behavior at a different school – and whether placement in the Success Academy should be considered a punishment.

“If these students were leaving the School District of Philadelphia for another charter school, the law seems clear that they could not be punished for conduct that occurred last year, when they were students in the District,” says Lapp.

A ‘blurry line’

Some of the Success Academy’s initial 55 students did not attend Stetson last year. But most, including 7th graders Precious Paulin and Joshua Gill, had significant behavioral problems there in the past.

Precious, 12, says she was suspended “a lot” for cursing and hitting other students. Joshua, also 12, says he got in trouble when he stabbed another student in the hand with a pencil after being teased.

“Last year, I really just did not care,” says Precious.

But three months into the school year, both she and Joshua say they have been “turned around.”

During a recent English class, both students sit with their hands folded on their desks, following the lesson of teacher Beth Cole, who is certified in English and communications and worked at the Camelot-run Shallcross disciplinary school last year.

At the start of class, Precious and Joshua both respond to Cole’s instruction to write a short paragraph making a prediction about how their class will go. They raise their hands to explain what “prediction” means and listen as Cole connects the assignment to questions they are likely to see on standardized tests.

Precious has gained back “privileges,” such as wearing jewelry and walking “out of protocol,” because she is the school’s first female “stallion” – a leadership position earned through good behavior and completion of a detailed pledge log. Wilfredo Cruz was the school’s first “stallion” – named for the school mascot.

Joshua makes a point of meeting any new adults on the fourth floor, looking them in the eye and shaking their hands firmly as he introduces himself as a member of the Success Academy.

“Now, I’m a real gentleman,” he says proudly.

Precious’s mother says that she was initially upset when she learned of her daughter’s assignment on the fourth floor.

“I didn’t want her to get lost up there,” says Donna Barksdale, 43.

But after school officials took her to see the academy – and after she witnessed the transformation in her daughter – Barksdale’s opinion changed.

“The classrooms looked the same, and the kids were under control,” she says. “And I see the difference in Precious this year. Her attitude is not like it was last year.”

But both Precious and Joshua say that they acted out early on, and that their early misbehavior led to staff putting them in “physical holds.”

“The first couple of times, it makes you mad,” explains Joshua. “But being in a [hold] made me think. Now, when someone bothers me, I take a timeout, do my work in a corner. It feels better being this way.”

Lysek stresses that the holds are only used if students pose an immediate threat to themselves or to others and that all of the holds are “standing techniques.”

This is significant because in the last decade, “prone restraints” came under intense scrutiny when five students at residential centers run by a now-defunct company called Brown Schools – where several current or former Camelot executives, including Lysek, once worked – died after being restrained while on the ground.

“It’s apples and oranges,” says Lysek. “We forbid our staff from taking students to the ground.”

ELC’s Lapp points out that while corporal punishment is against Pennsylvania law, it is permissible for teachers to use “reasonable force” in self-defense or to defend others. He cautions, “There is always a blurry line when reasonable force crosses over into physical punishment. Schools need to be careful about that line.”

Calderon says that ASPIRA is very mindful of the distinction.

“Discipline is one thing, abuse is another,” he says. “The safety of our students is always a concern of ASPIRA.”

As a parent, Donna Barksdale was unhappy when she found out that her daughter had been put in a physical hold. But clear communication with the school seems to have eased her concern.

“I was upset when I heard about it,” says Barksdale, 43. “I asked Precious about it, and she said it was nothing, that he didn’t hurt her. [Success Academy staff] explained to me on the phone what it was, and I felt better about it.”

Part of Barksdale’s acceptance comes from her history with Stetson.

“I was mad, but I didn’t get really upset because it was the beginning of the school year,” says Barksdale. “Students from Stetson last year were really wild. They’re just showing them what they do to get them under control.”

Video courtesy of Success Schools

Considering ‘cultural competence’

2010-12-01T13:21:00+00:00

This article was originally published in The Notebook. In August 2020, The Notebook became Chalkbeat Philadelphia.

Waiting for ‘Superman’" has reignited a national conversation about what makes for effective teaching.

But in the back-and-forth debate about hot-button issues like teacher unions and performance pay, the importance of the "cultural competence" of school staff has been largely overlooked.

What is "cultural competence?" And moving forward, what role is it likely to play in how Philadelphia schools think about good teaching?

A question of trust

According to New York University education professor Pedro Noguera, who works as a consultant for the School District, the term "refers to the ability of school personnel to work effectively with students and parents from different backgrounds."

For teachers, it encompasses a sometimes-murky collection of attitudes, beliefs, and behaviors that allow them to understand and address both their own biases and the uniqueness of each student.

Likewise, schools and school districts can be said to be culturally competent when they have in place "policies, procedures, and systems … that allow them to harness the talents of people across their organization," said Howie Schaffer, the vice president of Cook Ross, a consulting firm specializing in the topic.

The whole notion matters, said Schaffer, because in order to achieve, students have to trust that schools understand them and have their best interests at heart.

Locally, the debate about how to improve teaching and learning – and, by extension, the extent to which "cultural competence" will be emphasized by a District with over 85 percent of students of color – is being played out on a few key fronts.

At 13 low-performing "Renaissance Schools," the District has put in place a "turnaround" plan aimed at reversing long histories of failure. The lessons learned at seven new Renaissance charters and six new District-run Renaissance Promise Academies are likely to be applied at other struggling schools.

At the District’s central office, Superintendent Arlene Ackerman and her staff are wrestling with the findings from a series of commissions and reports on vexing issues like "racial and cultural harmony," the high dropout rate of African-American and Latino boys, and the system’s persistently dangerous schools. Also at issue is the makeup of the teacher workforce itself. The number of educators of color continues to decline and now represents less than a third of the District’s teachers.

How each front unfolds may shape the ways in which cultural competence is prioritized in Philadelphia in years to come.

Renaissance models

The District’s 13 new Renaissance Schools are a closely watched proving ground.

Early on, there are clear signs of the "policies, procedures, and systems" described by Schaffer as essential to culturally competent organizations.

At Mastery Charter Schools, which is managing three of the turnarounds, prospective teachers’ beliefs about whether all children can learn – and whether teachers should be held responsible for their students’ outcomes – are more important than traditional indicators like certification status.

Mastery’s hiring strategy embodies one central tenet of cultural competence: that all teachers should have high expectations for all students.

At the District’s Promise Academies, staff did community walks before the start of the school year, laying the groundwork for dialogue and partnerships with neighboring churches, businesses, and residents.

"Getting to know who is in [students’] families, who is in [their] neighborhoods – that’s our approach," explained Assistant Superintendent Francisco Duran.

Such efforts reflect another dimension of organizational cultural competence – developing strong, collaborative relationships with parents and community members.

And at Stetson Middle School, ASPIRA of PA brings to its new management role a commitment to using education to build leadership within the surrounding community. This approach includes the goal of creating a school staff that mirrors the demographics of Stetson’s student body.

"The only way to improve a community is by building from within," stressed ASPIRA CEO Alfredo Calderon. Having a staff that is reflective of students’ backgrounds "shows the kids that people just like you can be successful," he explained.

In the classroom

But at the level of individual Renaissance classrooms, an emphasis on culturally competent teaching is less evident.

The instructional models of the Renaissance providers as a whole largely reflect a move away from "student-centered" teaching, driven by students’ experiences and interests, and towards more remediation of basic skills and standards-based direct instruction.

The Promise Academies, for example, use heavy doses of Corrective Reading and Math, scripted curricula that allow for little teacher autonomy.

And Mastery explicitly rejects the arguments of some scholars of cultural competence that effective educators see teaching "as an art rather than a technical skill." Instead, Mastery’s instructional model is based on techniques that it maintains will work in any classroom, in any subject, with students from any cultural background.

The Renaissance initiative will expand this year, with more schools set to be matched with "turnaround teams" next spring.

But what, if any, lessons about "cultural competence" will the District draw from its current turnarounds, and how will cultural competence fit on the agenda for school improvement for the roughly 250 schools that are so far not part of the Renaissance process?

Judging by the flurry of reports and recommendations that followed last year’s brutal attacks on Asian students at South Philadelphia High School – and the negative publicity that resulted – District leadership is at least paying attention to the issue.

Last year, for example, the District added "Diversity Awareness, Inclusion and Cultural Competency" to the list of core standards it uses to evaluate most educators.

And the District’s professional development includes a focus on cultural competence. It is a "major component" of a new teacher induction program which all new District educators are required to complete.

"We talk about diverse students and how to work with them," said Rosalind Jones-Johnson, director of education for the Philadelphia Federation of Teachers Health and Welfare Fund. "Not just cultural groups, but really focusing in on individual students, because you can have two Latino students and two African-American students in the same classroom that could have very different issues. So we encourage our teachers to get to know the students one-on-one."

District leadership has taken initiative in other areas. School Reform Commissioners Robert Archie and Johnny Irizarry, for example, spearheaded the District’s Black and Latino Male Dropout Taskforce, which has flagged the lack of engagement of young men of color as a critical academic issue and proposed a variety of responses, including establishing some single-sex classrooms.

Given the raging national debate about effective teaching and the high-stakes, data-driven environment in which all schools and teachers now operate, however, it’s unclear how long a hard-to-quantify concept like cultural competence will remain on the District’s radar.

"In a heightened accountability environment," said Schaffer, "it can be difficult to see the whole person, not just a test score."

10 Renaissance provider prospects named

2010-11-17T12:30:00+00:00

This article was originally published in The Notebook. In August 2020, The Notebook became Chalkbeat Philadelphia.

The District has named 10 finalists from the 20 respondents to its request for potential providers to run schools in a second cohort of Renaissance Schools. The list of "RFQ finalists" includes some national players in school turnaround that would be new to Philadelphia.

The four providers currently running Renaissance Schools – Mastery Charter Schools, ASPIRA of PA, Universal Companies, and Scholar Academies (formerly Young Scholars) – are all back for more. Johns Hopkins/Diplomas Now, which was a finalist last year, is also in the running.

The other national providers:

Global Partnerships Schools, Inc., New York, NY
Green Dot America, Los Angeles, CA
Mosaica Turnaround Teams, New York, NY

Two other local entities, Esperanza Academy and Foundations Inc., are finalists.

RFQ finalists must now submit a proposal to be approved as a provider. Last year, all six who made the first cut were approved, and four ended up getting matched with schools.

The District also updated its timeline for this year’s process but still has not specified a date when this year’s Renaissance-Eligible schools will be named.

Nov. 16: Request for proposals (RFP) issued to RFQ Finalist Year II
Dec. 21: 2010 RFP responses due
Jan.17: RFP finalists selected
Jan./Feb.: Matching process between RFP finalists and Renaissance Schools
March 2011: SRC votes on matches

Activities help shape life in high school

2010-09-07T13:13:00+00:00

This article was originally published in The Notebook. In August 2020, The Notebook became Chalkbeat Philadelphia.

When Brittney White, a senior at Kensington High School for Creative and Performing Arts (Kensington CAPA), was deciding which high school to attend, she didn’t consider academic programs, college-going rates, extracurricular activities, or any of the other factors many students weigh when making their choice.

She chose Kensington CAPA because her sister had attended the school.

But within her first two years there, she realized that something she had overlooked in her search had become a critical part of her high school experience.

“Honestly, it was the extracurricular stuff that made me want to stay at my high school. If my school couldn’t offer anything for me to do besides just sitting in class all day, I think I would want to transfer,” White said.

White took up singing, began to dance on the Step Team, participated in drumline, and became active in the school’s Youth United for Change (YUC) chapter. She also explored the film club, student government, and drama.

For some students, access to extracurricular activities is the draw to one school over another. For some like White, it’s what ultimately motivates them to stay in school and ends up defining their high school experience.

Some high schools have built reputations for certain activities – for instance, Imhotep Institute Charter High School for strong sports teams, especially boys’ basketball, or Kensington CAPA for performing arts.

Other schools such as Masterman, with over 30 clubs and service organizations, have exceptional programs across the board.

Then there are high schools that fail to offer programs with any real substance, leaving students hungry for more than what’s offered inside the classroom.

High school guides at best provide limited detail about specific programs, and sometimes not everything on paper is real. Students and families who haven’t done their research in advance of applying can meet disappointment when the school year begins.

The District’s Imagine 2014 strategic plan commits the District to making sure that “all students have access to comprehensive enrichment, including arts, music, and athletic programs during the day, after school, during the summer, and on Saturdays.”

During a community briefing in July, Superintendent Arlene Ackerman and Mayor Nutter presented an update on the plan, promising to offer a visual and performing arts program at every comprehensive high school.

The District has opened a Regional Talent Center for dance, arts, and music at Martin Luther King High School in March and plans to open another at Audenried in the fall.

Justin Carter, a 2010 West Philadelphia High School graduate, attests to the importance of extracurriculars. Carter started high school at Communications Tech but dropped out within two weeks because he felt the school offered him little.

“Not having the right extracurricular programs really weighs on students because they don’t have the ability to express themselves … to channel their energy into something that they enjoy and have an affinity for,” Carter said. “These programs can help you focus your energy so when you walk into a classroom, you’re not so restless,” he said.

Carter was home-schooled for two years before enrolling at West. He recalled that when he arrived, some of its programs seemed in disarray.

“The music program was in bad shape. Our music teacher retired, and they still hadn’t signed up a new one, and there were very few instruments, most of which were old and out of tune,” he said.

Carter said some other programs were outstanding, however. The school had just invested in new video equipment and also had a group of students active with the Urban Nutrition Initiative, an educational program that allows members to work on nutrition-related issues in the community alongside university students studying public health.

Carter found an outlet for his talents as a member of the school’s celebrated Hybrid X Team. The team’s car recently placed ahead of over 90 other submissions from university engineering programs and auto industry professionals in a $10 million contest to develop a 100-mile-per-gallon automobile.

Along with his experience with Hybrid X, which he credits as his reason for staying at West, Carter also played football and ran track his junior year and participated in the school’s chapter of the Philadelphia Student Union (PSU). He said the support of his peers and mentors at PSU was the biggest key to his academic success.

“When my grandfather passed away, I was pretty upset and had trouble concentrating on school. PSU really helped me calm down and deal with how I felt so I could focus on my work and get my grades back to where they needed to be,” he said.

In Carter’s case, his activities helped improve his academics because his PSU peers would hold him accountable and provide emotional support. But striking a balance between academics and extracurriculars is not always easy.

White said even though afterschool activities kept her engaged, they also took so much time and energy that her grades began to suffer. Only when she became involved with YUC as a junior did she feel pressure to perform academically as part of her commitment to her extracurricular activities, renewing her focus on her schoolwork.

Andre Noble, dean of students at Imhotep and head coach of the school’s state champion boys’ basketball team, said, “Young people … sometimes need a commitment to an extracurricular activity to motivate them to take their academics more seriously. When used properly, these programs can help them bring their dreams into focus and understand how their goals in life are connected to their academic performance.”

This has been the case for David Appolon, a senior at Imhotep and the captain of the basketball team. Though a number of schools offered strong basketball programs, Appolon felt Imhotep provided him equally strong opportunities as a student and as an athlete.

Still, it was Noble who helped him bring the two together.

“Basketball makes me keep my grades up. It’s especially true here since Andre isn’t just the coach, he’s also the dean of students, so he always knows if we’re slacking off,” Appolon said.

At Imhotep, all players are required to go on college visits, many of which end up being schools they attend on athletic scholarships.

“I was always concerned about basketball, but now I also have to be concerned about academics if I want to keep playing. If I don’t stay on top of my work, I won’t be able to play. It’s that simple,” he said.

Beeber: An ArtsZone hub

2010-04-22T12:39:00+00:00

This article was originally published in The Notebook. In August 2020, The Notebook became Chalkbeat Philadelphia.

Community partners, business leaders, artists, parents, and students of Beeber Middle School will meet on April 28th at 5 p.m. to plan for a newly launched Art Zone. The program was established in collaboration with ArtsRising, a comprehensive youth initiative supported by the Philadelphia Education Fund, Public Citizens for Children and Youth, and Fleisher Art Memorial.

Beeber is one of the five inaugural ArtsRising ArtZone hubs. ArtsZone hubs are geographical areas anchored by schools that are linked integrally to their surrounding neighborhoods and arts resources within communities and the larger city. Other inaugural ArtZone hubs will be located at:

Warren G. Harding Middle School
John B. Stetson Middle School
Grover Washington Middle School
C.A.A. Baldi Middle School

What follows is a guest blog contribution written by Precious Lee, an 8th grader at Beeber Middle School. She is one of Beeber’s leading student journalists. She has written about her views on art and the launching of the ArtsRising ArtsZone hubs.

Please spread the word about Beeber’s ArtZone and encourage Precious with comments and questions about what role art should play in schools.

ArtsRising Creating Visual and Performing Arts

Can you imagine a world without art? Or what if people didn’t have time to be creative?

Many people ask what is art and why is it important? Art is the conscious use of skills and creative imagination. Art is an important subject that brings out someone’s creativity and emotion. Shy students go to art and they start coming out of their shells because in art they develop self confidence and they start believing in themselves.

Many students think art is what makes school interesting.

Art also supports academic learning. Art plays a significant role in kid’s development and learning process. The arts help students learn how to work cooperatively and to believe in their talents. Art gives students a positive experience and allows them to learn the skills they need to be successful. Art and music education serve to broaden children’s perspectives on life and help them become more well-rounded individuals.

I had a chance to attend an event that combined art, music, and dance. This event was the ArtsRising In Schools, In Community, In Life Launch Celebration held at Harding Middle School on Feb. 18. This event showed how art is important and how art can keep kids off the street.

At this event I had a chance to read my poem "Te Quiero,’" which is a bilingual poem that means "I love you." Domenick Shuler, another student from Beeber, read his poem "Angels." Students from Baldi’s string ensemble played classical music. I enjoyed this very much because I play the violin, too. And students from Stenson performed a mini recital of Latin dance styles.

Mrs. Smith, the Art teacher at Beeber Middle School, also attended this event. She said, "The ArtsRising launching was fabulous. This grant will provide additional resources for our school.” When asked why is art important she said, "Art is important because it allows for personal creativity, critical thinking, and it relates to other content areas; it is a subject that all students can learn and do with personal effort." The last question I her asked was, how important is art to her and how important is it for the students to know art? Mrs. Smith said,"Art is my life. I have a passion for visual arts and I want students to appreciate art with the hopes that some will want to pursue art as a lifelong career."

Ms. McMickens the director of ArtsRising had this to say about art, in a radio interview, on Power 99. "The arts are a wonderful access point… to start to gain some understanding, to see and find some common ground," She also said that, "ArtsRising is really about finding as many ways as possible for our youth to access their own creativity and to experience the arts, and to connect with one another, with their communities, with other youth, and with adults who really care about them and what their life experiences will be."

I am excited that Beeber is a part of the ArtsRising. I want people to see my talents and my classmates’ too. Together we can create great works of art.

Chess Club: No pads, no helmets, just pawns

2010-01-29T11:42:00+00:00

This article was originally published in The Notebook. In August 2020, The Notebook became Chalkbeat Philadelphia.

Chess is not just a game for nerds!

Blankenburg is the leading chess team in the west region of the Philadelphia Scholastic Chess League, sponsored by the After School Activities Partnership (ASAP). Players who sit across the board each week may even be considered cool. Many excel in sports such as basketball and football, and have seen academic growth that they attribute to playing chess.

The leaders of the Blankenburg chess team are self-assured and confident tweens and teens. Rushawn Martin, a 6th grader who has been playing chess for only two years, said, “I joined chess when I saw other classmates attending tournaments.” Martin described his early experience with chess as “boring and exciting at the same time.” He noted the intensity of facing another opponent lead him to improve his chess skills. Martin stated chess helps him slow down and think things through. He said, “chess helps me do better on my test; I don’t rush when I am taking my test anymore."

Sharlock Griffin, a “young, statesman-like” 8th grader, has been playing chess for over three years. He said, “I only got serious when I saw my friends and my little brother winning medals and trophies.” Griffin indicated that chess has taken him to some exciting places. He and other Blankenburg players are members of the Paul Robeson chess club. They attend tournaments throughout the city and region. Griffin spoke with pride, “I helped raise funds for the team to participate in the Supernationals in Nashville, the Superbowl of chess tournaments."

Ellana Gaines, aka “Lady Lion," is an 8th grader who is not intimidated that chess is perceived as a male-dominated sport. She said, “it motivates me when an opponent is sexist and thinks I can’t play because I am girl." She has been playing chess for four years and said, “chess keeps me out of trouble and helps me use the process of elimination in real world situations.”

These articulate chess scholars spoke of their coach and mentor Mikyael El-Mekki with high regard. They said, “Coach El-Mekki is tough, but makes us better players." They admitted that even when they try to argue with him–not only about chess–he is right most of time.

El-Mekki is truly amazing. He coaches two chess teams at Blankenburg and Mastery Charter Shoemaker, and sponsors the Paul Robeson Chess club. El-Mekki played chess against his brother Sharif El-Mekki the principal at Mastery Charter Shoemaker since they were children. Principal El-Mekki said of his brother, “Coach El-Mekki has dedicated himself to using chess as a tool to teach students how to problem solve, focus, and analyze.”

Griffin explained that “Coach El Mekki taught us that Paul Robeson was a great actor, scholar, traveled all over the world, and he even played chess." Griffin said, “Robeson’s life motivates me, to take it the next level. I’m going to keep playing chess, win scholarships, and make something of my life.”

When wrapping up my interview with the chess players, I asked them if they knew about Maurice Ashley, the world’s first African American chess grandmaster and national advocate for using chess as outreach to inner-city kids. They responded “we played against him in a 30 players simul,” (simultaneous chess match) at the Supernationals “and he beat all 30 of us.”

Chess clearly motivates and supports students in improving academically. More students need mentors like Coach El Mekki and Maurice Ashley and programs like ASAP to motivate and inspire young people through extra-curricula activities.

Blankenburg went undefeated in the west region and will enter the playoffs of the Philadelphia Scholastic Chess League. The Paul Robeson Chess club will hold a special chess event for the community during Black history month in February.

Stay tuned to my blog, for chess events sponsored by the Paul Robeson Chess Club and the final playoff results from the Philadelphia Scholastic Chess League.

Brave New Voices … or is it all about love?

2009-05-28T05:05:00+00:00

This article was originally published in The Notebook. In August 2020, The Notebook became Chalkbeat Philadelphia.

I was pleased to see that the White House recently hosted a poetry jam featuring some up-and-coming spoken word poets who have appeared on Russell Simmons’ HBO series "Brave New Voices." President and Michelle Obama are one of the hippest couples to occupy the executive mansion in recent years.

But I am even more pleased that Beeber Middle School has been hosting an annual Poetry Cafe jam for over the past 10 years.

What started out as a desperate attempt for me to find a way to engage many of my disengaged students is now a rite of passage for many of the talented students in the school.

On May 29th, 16 students will brave the stage and compete in our school’s annual Poetry Café contest. The daring contestants will glance at a full auditorium of over 300 faces; some kind, some at awe, some giddy, some disconnected. Taking deep breaths, these brave pubescent artists will make “words from the page come alive on the stage.”

Some students at Beeber consider their participation in the annual Poetry Café contest the highlight of the year. This collaborative experience involves a large part of the school and engages students to write and perform poetry as well as showcase singers, rappers, dancers, and spoken word talent at the school.

This year the event will host two simultaneous competitions: a poetry recitation and poetry slam contest.

For the poetry recitation, students perform and recite poems from the Poetry Out Loud: National Recitation Contest Anthology. Dina Gioa, the former chairman of the National Endowment for the Arts and credited with creating the Poetry Out Loud National Contest, argues for training students in performance poetry to keep the art of poetry alive. When poems are read or recited, it improves speaking and listening skills. Although the formal contest is for high school students, I want my middle school students to have that opportunity to read and bring the words of the world’s most prolific poets from William Blake to Langston Hughes alive on stage.

This year there will be a diverse collection of poems recited. We have Jhon, a 7th grader, and Marcus, an 8th grader, reciting such titles as “We Wear the Mask” by Paul L. Dunbar, and "Dream deferred (Harlem)” by Langston Hughes. Alexis will be performing a bilingual poem “Bilingual/ Bilingue” by Rhina P. Espaillat. It’s been great seeing this 7th grade girl, who is Puerto Rican, embody this poem.

Armon, who performed this same poem 2 years ago, won the recitation contest then. He wowed the crowd with his Spanish and English articulation. Sounds like “mi lengua” and “su numbre” really made the crowd take note. He was truly brave; he had never taken any Spanish courses (foreign languages have been removed from most of our middle schools). But I let Armon work on the poem with Juan, one of the few Puerto Rican students in the school (we have a small but growing population of Latino students), and Armon nailed the poem.

Now the tables have turned, and Armon is helping Alexis master performing this poem. He helps her repeat words that tongue-tie her – "mundo y palabra." This year Armon has chosen to recite the lilting poem “The Tyger” by William Blake. Because he won the recitation contest 2 years ago, students see Armon as a front runner for the recitation contest.

The poetry slam will highlight original work produced by our students. Some poems encompass universal issues such as teen struggles, while others take listeners on personal journeys through their ars poetica. Ayanna, a 6th grader, uses a Jill Scott-like persona to perform her poem "Music," while Sabir, another 6th grader, pays homage to Robert Hayden and Tupac in his poem "Poetry."

But love is the dominant theme in most of the poems. Not just any old kind of the love but those first, real or imagined, “mushy” love poems. David, a 7th grade student, muses in his poem “One Kiss.” While practicing his performance, David gets on hands and knees and says “I’m on my hands and knees/ Baby you’re one of a kind/ Girl you need to be mine/ Ooh girl you are fine…"

Sixth grader Courtney laments in her poem “Is this Love." When practicing Courtney uses a demure tone and utters “Is this love if you said it was lust/ Is this love if said my body/ Would be the only one you touch…" There is also the poem “Mystery” by Precious, a 7th grade girl, who writes song lyrics, and then there is “Will That Boy Ever Love Me”, by musically talented Zakeyah, a 6th grade violinist.

As I have worked with the students after school and sometimes during my prep period, I can’t help but to be hopeful about love. Even though my son Kagiso calls me an old “married fart,” I am starting to feel this love vibe.

Or maybe it’s the change in weather. I am wondering if the onslaught of love poems is due to the fact that last year’s slam poet winner, Justin, performed a love confession poem that was covertly performed for his “girlfriend” who will remain "nameless." Justin performed his poem so well, the audience swooned (including the teachers and judges) – maybe thinking his love poem was dedicated to them. Dominick, the front runner for the poetry slam this year, has not written a “mushy” love poem. This lanky but confident 7th grader, who competed in a recitation contest last year, has been perfecting his slam poem since the beginning of the school year.

His poem “My Halo," is a very different type of love poem that pays reverence to his parents and mentors, who help keep him on the right path. He has not missed a practice, and despite being the front runner, he is always asking for constructive feedback on how to improve his performance. Just the other day, he asked me, “How can I do gestures with both my hands if the microphone in my other hand is in my way?”

I am just excited to see that tradition of poetry and celebrating art is not only valued at Beeber Middle School. I say to the White House, "Welcome to the club."

Obama administration commitment backed by dollars

2009-03-05T10:38:00+00:00

This article was originally published in The Notebook. In August 2020, The Notebook became Chalkbeat Philadelphia.

When President Barack Obama campaigned on his platform of “change,” he promised that if elected he would make a “truly historic commitment to education.”

In his first month on the job, Obama did in fact take an unprecedented step – signing a $787 billion economic stimulus bill that includes a two-year infusion of some $100 billion for education. This is nearly double the U.S. Department of Education’s entire discretionary budget for fiscal year 2009, which totals $59.2 billion.

Loaded with dollars to fund everything from teacher quality to technology for classrooms, the package will help school districts avert layoffs through a $53.6 billion state fiscal-stabilization fund. It will also dole out $13 billion in new money for Title I programs for disadvantaged students and $12 billion for state grants for special education.

The package addresses a number of the president’s stated early childhood priorities, which include Head Start, access to affordable, high-quality child care, and a comprehensive “Zero to Five” plan, emphasizing early care and education for infants to prepare them for kindergarten.

The legislation also provides substantial new funding to students and families for higher education in the form of increased Pell grants for low-income students and expanded tax credits for college costs.

Former Chicago Public Schools chief Arne Duncan is Obama’s new Secretary of Education. Duncan will direct the disbursement of a massive $5 billion in “innovation” and “incentive” grants from the stabilization fund to encourage states to raise standards and reward them for addressing achievement gaps.

The new administration plans a number of efforts in K-12 education – outlined on the White House Web site – including support for recruitment and retention of quality and accredited teachers, expansion of high-quality afterschool programs, support for English language learners, and the creation of more successful charter schools.

A top agenda item is the reauthorization of No Child Left Behind, which requires states to rate schools based on annual testing. Critics have blasted the law for inadequate funding and for turning schools into test-prep factories that target reading and math at the exclusion of such subjects as art, physical education, and music.

In an interview on NCLB’s seventh anniversary, District Superintendent Arlene Ackerman said she supports “the concept” of the law. “I actually hope that it does get re-authorized,” she said.

While she has differences with aspects of it, she said she doesn’t think the law compels districts to decimate art and music programs. “You don’t have to get rid of them and then replace it with just teaching to the test,” she said.

Obama says he wants to make the law less punitive. Duncan plans to tour the country to talk with school officials and families about ways to improve NCLB, and is even considering renaming the law. He said he hopes Congress will reauthorize the measure by late in the year.

Overbrook wins mock trial title

2008-05-22T00:00:00+00:00

This article was originally published in The Notebook. In August 2020, The Notebook became Chalkbeat Philadelphia.

A team from Overbrook High School won the 2008 Pennsylvania Bar Association Statewide Mock Trial Championship on March 29, beating Greensburg Salem High School, reigning state champion for the past three years, in the final round.

This is the third state title for Overbrook, following wins in 1997 and 2004. Competing in the championships were 12 high school teams from around the state, narrowed from the 295 teams that participated at the district and regional levels.

The case argued in this year’s competition concerned an alleged kidnapping.

Philip Beauchemin, Overbrook teacher and coach for two decades, led the winning team of captain Ian Wiley, Jennifer Josiaste, Sarah Brown, Lakyra Stokes, Tamika Webb, Cedric Ingram Jr., Kiersten Harris-Andrews, and Jamal Hill. Overbrook graduate and Temple University law student Josie Hyman assisted in coaching.

Team members fulfill the roles of plaintiffs, defendants, lawyers, and witnesses in an actual courtroom presided over by a judge. Volunteer lawyers and community leaders sit as jurors and assess the teams on their preparedness, arguments, and ability to follow court rules.

Coach Beauchemin said the team set itself apart from the competition "for the old fashioned reasons

Fairhill Community High School: Phoenix rising

2008-03-06T00:00:00+00:00

This article was originally published in The Notebook. In August 2020, The Notebook became Chalkbeat Philadelphia.

According to mythology, the phoenix was a sacred bird reborn from its ashes. It’s fitting, then, that the phoenix is the mascot for Fairhill Community High School, a school in Kensington that gives another chance to former dropouts such as 17-year-old Samuel Estevez.

"I was way off track at Kensington High," Estevez acknowledged as he polished a persuasive essay in computer lab. But after leaving Kensington, he stayed home for just a month before realizing that he "wasn’t going to make it anywhere in life" without a diploma.

He heard about Fairhill from his girlfriend, a recent graduate, and he found it a far more congenial place. "Here I attend school every day," he said. "The teachers don’t play. They’re really about teaching. At Kensington, you could walk out of class … and no one would say anything."

Founded in 2004, Fairhill is one of six "accelerated schools" designed to reclaim over-age students with few high school credits and put them on a path to a diploma. It is bringing new hope to roughly 225 students and has a waiting list of 300.

The nonprofit that runs Fairhill, IECI/One Bright Ray, Inc., has an agreement to open a "North Philadelphia Community High School" nearby this spring for 100 students, some of them coming out of the juvenile justice system. Because of the high demand, the District is planning to open yet another accelerated school this summer.

An evaluation of the accelerated schools is underway, but there is not yet any hard data on how effective these small, privately managed schools are in shepherding students to graduation and further education or jobs. Principal Marcus Delgado said that in less than four years Fairhill has awarded diplomas to 87 students.

It is clear that at Fairhill many students benefit. Estevez is on track to graduate in September with plans to enroll in barber school and open his own shop. Sasha Bernard, 17, found Fairhill on the recommendation of a math teacher at Edison who saw that she was floundering.

"Here the teachers … make sure you get your work done,” she said as she compiled a “Hamlet Dictionary” using PowerPoint. “At Edison, they didn’t care what you did, as long as you didn’t make trouble.” She is on track to graduate in March 2009 and wants to enter the medical field.

Photo: Harvey Finkle

Sasha Bernard who struggled at Edison, is on track to graduate from Fairhill in March 2009.

Interview required

Delgado said that students are admitted four times a year after undergoing an intensive interview process in which he determines whether they are serious about returning to school. He estimates that he admits 90 percent of the students he interviews.

Some, he said, come to Fairhill with zero credits; some have been out of school for four or five years. Some read on lower than a sixth-grade level. To help them succeed, Fairhill offers a range of support services, including a social worker and therapist and one support service class during the last hour of every day. There, students get instruction with a ten-to-one student-teacher ratio. In addition, tutoring services are available after school every day until 4 p.m.

Of critical importance to students like 18-year-old Ashley Howell is Fairhill’s on-site daycare facility, where her 18-month-old daughter is enrolled. After dropping out of Edison, Howell stayed home for four months, but decided to get her diploma in large part to better provide for her daughter. “I was no longer just living for myself. I was being selfish if I didn’t go back to better her future,” she said.

With perfect attendance, she aspires to study nursing after graduating next January. Like other students, she credits the school’s supportive atmosphere for her turnaround. “Everybody knows you here,” she explains. “You feel wanted.”

Classrooms combine structured learning and individual projects as part of eight-week- long “modules,” or learning sessions. In addition to core subjects, all students engage in a half-hour of school-wide reading per day. Each class reads the same book, with the goal of reading four books per year. Titles range from classics such as Hamlet to Steve Lopez’s Third and Indiana.

“But before we teach them skills, we teach them how to respect themselves,” Delgado said, starting with a strict dress code. As they calmly file into school shortly before 8 a.m., one sees no sloppy shirttails, sneakers, or droopy pants. Instead, girls wear a neat, green Fairhill shirt, black skirt, black knee-highs, and oxfords. Boys similarly wear a green shirt, black slacks, and oxfords.

Busy summer days

School is year-round, except for a break in late August. The summer session is a service learning project done by groups of 50 students. In the past, students created documentary DVDs and books of their writing. This summer they will develop a community garden as well as a flyer instructing residents on how to obtain needed city services.

To earn a diploma students must not only earn 23.5 credits, but complete a senior seminar, pass basic competency tests in Math and English, and make a PowerPoint presentation on a subject relevant to their future or personal interest.

They also complete a one-month, school-arranged internship during the second summer they attend Fairhill, and students have completed internships at the neighborhood Coca-Cola bottling company and other area businesses. Two modules before graduation, each student meets with the school social worker to plan what he or she will do after graduation. After earning their diplomas, Delgado estimates that about 30 percent of Fairhill students continue their educations while the rest go to work.

A key component of Fairhill’s educational philosophy seems to be peer pressure, of a positive variety, which is evident in history teacher Brandon Grodnitzky’s class. On a recent morning students worked in small groups creating posters showing the five key characteristics of civilization as they relate to ancient Sumeria. Crystal Rosario stopped to explain knowledgeably how Sumerians used a cylinder seal to record business transactions, an example of one characteristic, record-keeping. “The rest of the class will rally around anyone who is struggling,” Grodnitzky said.

All this is not to say that Fairhill is without serious challenges. Some students don’t make it, inhibited mostly by personal and family issues, according to Delgado. There are pink slips, but most of those are not for disruption, but for unwillingness to do work – a no-no that will get a student removed from class.

“Our rules don’t bend,” Delgado said. “They know that if they don’t want to do the work, there are students who will be happy to take their place.”

Escuela Superior de la Comunidad Fairhill; un ave fénix

2008-03-06T00:00:00+00:00

This article was originally published in The Notebook. In August 2020, The Notebook became Chalkbeat Philadelphia.

De acuerdo con la mitología, el ave fénix era un pájaro sagrado que resucitaba de sus cenizas. Es apropiado por lo tanto que el fénix sea la mascota de la Escuela Superior de la Comunidad Fairhill, una escuela en Kensington que les da otra oportunidad a quienes han abandonado la escuela como Samuel Estevez, de 17 años.

“Yo estaba completamente desubicado en la Superior Kensington”, dijo Estevez mientras perfeccionaba un ensayo persuasivo en el laboratorio de computadoras. Pero después de dejar de ir a Kensington, se quedó en la casa por un mes y entonces se dio cuenta de que “no iba a llegar a ningún sitio en la vida” sin un diploma.

Él supo de Fairhill por su novia, que recientemente se graduó, y encontró que era un lugar mucho más amigable. “Aquí vengo a la escuela todos los días”, dijo. “Los maestros no juegan. Lo de ellos es enseñar. En Kensington, te podías ir de una clase… y nadie te decía nada”.

Fundada en 2004, Fairhill es una de seis “escuelas aceleradas” diseñadas para atraer a los estudiantes mayores de edad con pocos créditos y encaminarlos a conseguir su diploma de escuela superior. Les está dando nuevas esperanzas a más o menos 225 estudiantes y tiene una lista de espera de 300.

La organización sin fines de lucro que opera a Fairhill, IECI/One Bright Ray, Inc., tiene un acuerdo de abrir la “Escuela Superior de la Comunidad del Norte de Filadelfia” esta primavera para 100 estudiantes, algunos de ellos provenientes del sistema de justicia juvenil. Debido a la alta demanda, el Distrito está planificando abrir otra escuela acelerada este verano.

Hay una evaluación de las escuelas aceleradas trámites, pero todavía no existen datos sólidos de cuán efectivas son estas pequeñas escuelas privadas en lograr que los estudiantes se gradúen y sigan su educación o encuentren trabajos. El principal Marcus Delgado dijo que en menos de cuatro años Fairhill les ha otorgado diplomas a 87 estudiantes.

Es muy claro que en Fairhill muchos estudiantes se benefician. Estevez está en camino a graduarse en septiembre y tiene planes de matricularse en una escuela de barbería y abrir su propio negocio. Sasha Bernard, de 17 años, encontró a Fairhill por recomendación de una maestra de matemáticas en Edison quien notó que ella estaba luchando por mantenerse a flote.

“Aquí los maestros… se aseguran de que termines el trabajo”, dijo mientras compilaba un “Diccionario de Hamlet” usando el programa PowerPoint. “En Edison no les importaba lo que hicieras, siempre y cuando no causaras problemas”. Ella está en camino a graduarse en marzo de 2009 y quiere entrar en el campo de la medicina.

Es requisito entrevistar

Delgado dijo que los estudiantes se aceptan cuatro veces al año después de pasar por un intenso proceso de entrevistas en el cual él determina si tienen una intención seria de regresar a la escuela. Él calcula que admite 90 por ciento de los estudiantes que entrevista.

Algunos estudiantes, dijo, llegan a Fairhill sin créditos; algunos han estado fuera de la escuela por cuatro o cinco años El nivel de lectura de algunos es menor del de un estudiante de sexto grado. Para ayudarles a tener éxito, Fairhill ofrece una gama de servicios de apoyo, que incluye una trabajadora social y terapista y una clase de servicios de apoyo durante la última hora de clases todos los días. Allí, los estudiantes reciben instrucción con una proporción de diez estudiantes por maestro. Además, hay servicios de tutoría disponibles después de la escuela todos los días hasta las 4 p.m.

El centro de cuidado diurno para niños de Fairhill es sumamente importante para estudiantes como Ashley Howell, de 18 años, ya que su hijita de 18 meses está matriculada ahí. Después de abandonar sus estudios en Edison Howell se quedó en su casa por cuatro meses, pero decidió obtener su diploma en parte para poder ofrecerle algo mejor a su hija. “Ya no estaba viviendo solamente para mí. Estaba siendo egoísta si no regresaba a mejorar el futuro de ella”, dijo.

Howell tiene una asistencia perfecta, y aspira a estudiar enfermería después de graduarse el próximo enero. Como otros estudiantes, ella le da crédito por su cambio al ambiente de apoyo de la escuela. “Aquí todo el mundo te conoce”, explica. “Sientes que te quieren”.

Los salones de clase combinan aprendizaje estructurado y proyectos individuales como parte de los “módulos” o sesiones de aprendizaje de ocho semanas. Además de las materias básicas, todos los estudiantes participan en media hora de lectura todos los días. Cada clase lee el mismo libro, y la meta es leer cuatro libros al año. Los títulos van desde los clásicos como Hamlet hasta Third and Indiana de Steve López.

“Pero antes de que les enseñemos destrezas, les enseñamos a respetarse”, Delgado dijo, y eso comienza con un estricto código de vestimenta. Mientras calmadamente entran a la escuela un poco antes de las 8 a.m., nadie está vestido con camisas desaliñadas, tenis, ni pantalones caídos. En su lugar, las niñas usan una bonita camisa verde de Fairhill, una falda negra, medias negras hasta la rodilla y zapatos estilo oxford. Similarmente, los varones usan una camisa verde, pantalones negros y oxfords.

Atareados días de verano

La escuela está en sesión todo el año, con excepción de un descanso a fines de agosto. La sesión de verano es un proyecto de servicio hecho por grupos de 50 estudiantes. En el pasado, los estudiantes crearon DVDs documentales y libros con sus escritos. Este verano, desarrollarán un jardín comunitario y también una hoja de distribución para instruir a los residentes sobre cómo obtener los servicios que necesiten de la ciudad.

Para recibir un diploma los estudiantes no tienen sólo que obtener 23.5 créditos, sino también completar un seminario en su año senior, pasar exámenes básicos de competencia en matemáticas e inglés, y hacer una presentación en PowerPoint sobre un tema relevante a su futuro o de interés personal.

También completan un internado de un mes (coordinado por la escuela) durante el segundo verano en Fairhill, y los estudiantes han completado internados en la planta embotelladora de Coca-Cola y otros negocios del área. Dos módulos antes de graduarse, cada estudiante se reúne con el trabajador social de la escuela para planificar lo que hará después de la graduación. Después de obtener sus diplomas, Delgado calcula que aproximadamente 30 por ciento de los estudiantes de Fairhill continúan su educación y el resto empiezan a trabajar.

Un componente clave de la filosofía educativa de Fairhill parece ser la presión de grupo pero en este caso positiva, que es evidente en la clase del maestro de historia Brandon Grodnitzky. Durante una mañana reciente los estudiantes estaban trabajando en pequeños grupos creando carteles que mostraran las cinco características de la civilización en relación a la antigua Sumeria. Crystal Rosario se detuvo a explicar con lujo de detalles cómo los sumerios usaban un sello cilíndrico para registrar transacciones comerciales, un ejemplo de una de las características (mantenimiento de récords). “El resto de la clase trata de animar a quien esté teniendo dificultad”, dijo Grodnitzky.

Todo esto no significa que en Fairhill no haya retos difíciles. Algunos estudiantes no tienen éxito, inhibidos mayormente por asuntos personales y de familia, según Delgado. Hay papelitos rosados, pero la mayoría no son por causar problemas sino por no estar dispuestos a hacer el trabajo — algo que no se tolera y causará que un estudiante sea removido de la clase.

“Nuestras reglas no se rompen”, dijo Delgado. “Ellos saben que si no quieren hacer el trabajo, hay otros estudiantes que felizmente ocuparán su lugar”.

Mayoral task force finds progress, public skepticism

2007-11-22T00:00:00+00:00

This article was originally published in The Notebook. In August 2020, The Notebook became Chalkbeat Philadelphia.

While the School District has made significant improvements “by almost every measure” since the state takeover, according to a report by Mayor Street’s Education Advisory Task Force, it “has a long way to go in generating widespread confidence and praise from Philadelphia’s citizens.”

The task force report, issued November 1 after a year of research and discussion, cites public confidence, along with budget deficits, as major challenges facing the District. A poll conducted on behalf of the task force found that only 16 percent of residents are satisfied with the quality of the city’s public schools, while 58 percent are dissatisfied. In addition, the report notes the continued migration of students from District to charter schools.

Task force recommendations, drawn from the work of five committees, include:

increased support for professional development, including the restoration of funding for new teacher coaches.
reduced class size to improve both achievement and school climate.
expansion of afterschool programs providing holistic support for children.

The task force also calls for restoration of local control of the School District by 2010, and it questions the provision of extra funds to schools run by education management organizations.

The full 96-page report is available online.

To the editors:

2007-09-13T00:00:00+00:00

This article was originally published in The Notebook. In August 2020, The Notebook became Chalkbeat Philadelphia.

To the editors:

The Philadelphia School District’s Supplemental Education Services program provides free tutoring to eligible students as part of the No Child Left Behind Act. My center is one of several approved providers. This program offers students an amazing opportunity to improve their academic skills at no cost.

At the end of September, the parents of as many as 40,000 students will be sent enrollment forms. However, many of them do not understand what they have received nor realize that they have a limited time to take advantage of the offer.

The process is simple. All parents need to do is fill out an enrollment form selecting their top three provider choices. They then submit that form to the provider that they selected as their top choice. I think the biggest issue is that parents are unaware that their children can receive free tutoring.

For more information, contact any of the providers, the school principal, guidance counselor, or the School District office of supplemental education services.

Josh Maleeff

The writer is a center director for the Huntington Learning Center.

More Scrabble clubs are forming

2007-05-24T00:00:00+00:00

This article was originally published in The Notebook. In August 2020, The Notebook became Chalkbeat Philadelphia.

To the editors:

Thanks for your article about ASAP/After School Activities Partnership’s Scrabble initiative. As a result of this article, we have 15 new recruits and five new sites for Scrabble clubs.

To date there are 40 Philadelphia clubs with more than 600 students participating weekly. Clubs are formed and supervised by ASAP-recruited volunteers with backgrounds as diverse as school nurses, teachers, retirees, and professionals looking for a break in their weekly routines.

The benefits of Scrabble are many. In addition to the obvious improvements in spelling, vocabulary and dictionary usage, the game also requires math, spatial awareness, decision-making and healthy competition. Students have said how much they enjoy playing.

Philadelphia Scrabble Club members have volunteered to provide training and assist with clubs’ initial start up. We organize the trainings, and Hasbro and the National Scrabble Association donate all materials. If you are interested in starting a Scrabble club, contact Peter English of ASAP at 215-545-3077.

Marciene Mattleman
The writer is president of ASAP.

Services to immigrants not declining

2007-05-24T00:00:00+00:00

This article was originally published in The Notebook. In August 2020, The Notebook became Chalkbeat Philadelphia.

To the editors:

In response to the Notebook article “Immigrant communities decry cuts in services” (Spring 2007), the School District’s Office of Language, Culture and the Arts (OLCA) would like to share the following facts to rebut the charge that there has been “a string of declining services to immigrants.”

OLCA has ensured that all English Language Learners (ELLs), including immigrant children and youth, receive support or participate in the following activities:

“Refugee Programs” for the last four summers, successfully servicing more than 500 high school immigrants
Services of 80 “Bilingual Counselor Assistants,” who provide language translation and serve as cultural brokers in more than 140 schools
ELL parent meetings
Adult ESL Classes for parents of the Central East Region, Edison High School, Solis-Cohen and Hopkinson Elementary Schools, and Chinatown Learning Center
Translations of documents in multiple languages
A community advisory committee made up of representatives of all the communities represented in our student body
Spanish and Chinese language classes for adults in the Central East Region, at Taller Puertorriqueño, and at the 440 N. Broad St. Education Center
Cultural celebration of Hispanic Heritage, Asian Lunar New Year and Cambodian, Laotian and Thai New Year.
OLCA also improved the academic delivery in the Newcomer Program at South Philadelphia High School, with a “Student Success Center” and a state-of-the-art computer lab, while opening another Newcomer Program at George Washington High School.
To ensure quality, OLCA conducted walkthroughs in all 140 ESOL/Transitional Bilingual Program schools. OLCA programs are monitored by the Pennsylvania Department of Education and US Department of Education, receiving good feedback.
Margaret M. Chin
OLCA@phila.k12.pa.us
The writer is officer of the Office of Language, Culture, and the Arts for the School District. More on this topic on Activism around the city.

Scrabble is coming to a school near you

2006-11-23T00:00:00+00:00

This article was originally published in The Notebook. In August 2020, The Notebook became Chalkbeat Philadelphia.

Building upon the success of the Philadelphia Youth Chess Challenge, the local nonprofit group After School Activities Partnerships (ASAP) is expanding its program to include Scrabble clubs.

The decision to introduce Scrabble was an easy one, said Marciene Mattleman, president of ASAP. “Scrabble is the perfect afterschool activity. It improves literacy and strategic thinking skills for those of all ages,” she said.

Scrabble clubs arose out of “Philly Plays Scrabble,” a joint initiative with the Free Library of Philadelphia to promote Philadelphia as a literate city and to raise awareness about a game that can be both fun and an excellent teaching tool.

ASAP provides schools interested in starting a club with materials, which include sets, dictionaries, and handouts. Members of the Philadelphia Scrabble Club have also offered their time to lead workshops with students and teachers.

ASAP already sponsors clubs in nearly 160 public and charter schools in Philadelphia, providing the materials and trainings needed for teachers and volunteers to run afterschool chess clubs. School District CEO Paul Vallas said the clubs “help sharpen skills and provide many pleasurable hours for our students.”

Teachers, administrators, or volunteers interested in leading an afterschool club can contact ASAP Projects Coordinator Peter English at 215-545-3077 or penglish@phillyasap.org.

Princeton Review wins big in bid for contracts

2006-09-20T23:00:00+00:00

This article was originally published in The Notebook. In August 2020, The Notebook became Chalkbeat Philadelphia.

What the New York Yankees are to baseball, Princeton Review is to Philadelphia School District contractors. The New York-based company, known for its SAT preparation program, has scored at least $24.5 million in contracts here since 2002, making it one of the largest contractors for educational services in the District.

This year, with beefed-up summer school and extended-day contracts that are the heart of its business in Philadelphia, the company will realize revenues of over $7.6 million from the School District.

Founded in 1981 by John Katzman, the company launched its K-12 division, which contracts with Philadelphia, in 1999. The company had total revenues of over $130 million last year, but is operating at a loss.

“Strong growth” in the K-12 division is one of the company’s bright spots, according to analyst Rich Smith, writing for “The Motley Fool” column in August.

Philadelphia appears to have made a significant contribution to this growth, accounting for almost 20 percent of the K-12 division’s reported revenue. The company also has major contracts in New York and Chicago.

The bulk of Princeton Review’s contracts with the District (see chart) have been for consumable materials for summer school and for the extended day program (initiated under CEO Paul Vallas), which provides after-school remediation in math and reading.

Princeton Review contracts
approved by School Reform Commission, August 2005 – August 2006
$ 3,000,000	Extended-day program
$ 270,000	Saturday program
$ 107,824	Saturday program
$ 4,246,666	Summer school program
$ 900,000	Small school transition
$ 50,000	Praxis test prep

Princeton Review is also a major subcontractor for SchoolNet, providing benchmark assessments for elementary school grades (see "Mining the data").

In the past year, the company has been hired to run a Saturday program, to provide test preparation for teachers taking the Praxis exam, and to serve as a “transition manager” for four small high schools (see "Transition project").

The growth of the company’s business in Philadelphia illustrates how the rules of the contracting process under the School Reform Commission and CEO Paul Vallas have often been informal, falling somewhere between a no-bid process and a formal, competitive one.

The company’s most recent $3 million contract authorization for extended-day materials was awarded after a competitive bidding process that attracted seven vendors. The District is consolidating its extended-day services for both reading and math with Princeton Review and has cut the total cost of the program by $2.3 million.

State law requires that textbook contracts be competitively bid. The extended day materials are basically workbooks and so the recently awarded contract may fall into that category.

But in a Notebook review of prior SRC resolutions authorizing Princeton Review contracts, none make mention of any comparisons to other vendors or of a competitive process when explaining the justification for the contract award.

However, CEO Vallas said that the School District did put out “Requests for Qualifications,” or RFQs, on Princeton Review’s earlier contracts. “The reason they were hired,” Vallas said, “was because of their track record.”

Vallas also notes that two Princeton Review bids for SAT preparation contracts were rejected.

One advantage enjoyed by the company, cited by one SRC resolution, is “staff familiarity with the materials.”

According to School District leaders, another key advantage Princeton Review enjoys over its competitors at this point is that it has already cleared earlier hurdles and now has a track record. A contractor applying to the District for the first time, Chief Academic Officer Gregory Thornton said, “gets a much higher degree of scrutiny. “Then from that point on,” he noted, “the key question becomes ‘Are they doing effective work and are they meeting the terms?’”

District officials attribute higher test scores in part to the extended day program and link the success of that program to Princeton Review materials, but they did not provide any formal evaluations to back up their analysis. One District contract resolution cited data showing higher math test scores and lower rates of suspension for students in the extended day program as justification for purchasing Princeton Review materials.

The issue of how to maintain consistent oversight of contractors confronts the District as it scales up the contracting out of services, and companies like Princeton Review that have long-term business with a system pose some particular challenges.

Columbia University professor Elliott D. Sclar, in his book You Don’t Always Get What You Pay For: The Economics of Privatization, writes, “Oversight is a classic problem in public contracting: maintaining an arm’s length relationship between the contractor and the [public] employees charged with supervising the contractors’ performance.”

Sclar adds, “It is always in the interests of the contractor to form an external amicable relationship with the agent designated by the state to supervise him or her,” and he goes on to note that these bonds formed by contractors can pose challenges for the agency in maintaining an “arms-length relationship.”

Two Princeton Review consultants who figure prominently in the company’s relationships in Philadelphia are Gary Solomon, who has served as the company’s lead consultant in Philadelphia and Phil Hansen, one-time national director for urban schools for Princeton Review, who formerly served as chief accountability officer under Vallas in Chicago.

Vallas has described Hansen as a “pro bono” advisor in Philadelphia, but says he sees no conflict of interest in their relationship. He strongly defended seeking Hansen’s advice based on Hansen’s national reputation and demonstrated ability, describing him as one of “the absolute best when it comes to accountability.”

Vallas said Princeton Review was “getting their work not because we know Phil Hansen but because they are producing.” He noted that many vendors hire educators with national reputations.

Solomon, also a Princeton Review consultant in Chicago during the Vallas years, was involved in controversy in 2005, when he appeared to be trading on ties with Vallas associates including Hansen to promote his consulting company as a provider of “the Vallas model” of school reform. Vallas denounced the scheme as unauthorized as soon as it became public and Solomon disavowed the effort (see Notebook, summer 2005 edition). Vallas denied any relationship with Solomon. “I don’t deal with Gary Solomon,” he said.

Solomon and Hansen did not respond to requests for comment for this article.

Recent School District arts initiatives

2006-05-24T23:00:00+00:00

This article was originally published in The Notebook. In August 2020, The Notebook became Chalkbeat Philadelphia.

Artists-in-residence. Some 200 artists are working in 40 elementary schools that don’t have full-time art teachers in a program with the Philadelphia Arts in Education Partnership. The artists work with classroom teachers on special projects. They spend 10 days in the school, generally one day a week over a two-and-a-half month period.
Rebuilding high school bands and orchestras. The District has put new marching bands in Germantown, Kensington, Overbrook, Strawberry Mansion, West Philadelphia, and the High School of the Future (opening in September). Fels, Frankford, Gratz, Lincoln, Northeast, and Olney got new band instruments. Central, Fels, GAMP, Girls, Masterman, Northeast, and Washington received new orchestra instruments.
Performance and Outreach Model (POM). Students in underserved neighborhoods who master the recorder have the option of taking instrumental lessons starting in fourth grade. They get group lessons at their schools and can participate in new chamber orchestras or bands. The District has spent $700,000 on new instruments for this program.
Expanded summer activities. Students can participate in mural arts, pottery and other activities during the summer. There are also marching band, string orchestra, and vocal music summer camps.
Partnership with the Philadelphia Museum of Art. This program brings fourth-graders to the museum for lessons on the place of art in world cultures and the history of art in Philadelphia.
Partnership with Philadelphia Mural Arts Program. Up to 20 new murals a year will be created in and around schools over four years.
Theater curriculum. The District has written a high school theater curriculum in conjunction with Philadelphia Young Playwrights.
Ethnic music programs. Two schools, Key and Kirkbride, will have Asian orchestras in a partnership with the music group Eastern Melody; two others, Fairhill and McKinley, will have cuatro (a Puerto Rican string instrument) programs in a partnership with the Asociación de Músicos Latino Americanos. Taller Puertorriqueño is working with the District to expand knowledge of Latin culture through music and art.

Full-time art, music teachers: a dwindling breed?

2006-05-24T23:00:00+00:00

This article was originally published in The Notebook. In August 2020, The Notebook became Chalkbeat Philadelphia.

Once, the Philadelphia School District was a flagship for instruction in the arts, with certified music and art teachers in virtually every school. Today, it is struggling to rebuild that reputation as it faces tighter revenues, a shortage of qualified teachers, and pressure to spend more time on reading and math.

Today, less than a third of the city’s public schools have both art and music teachers. The majority of the rest have one or the other, but 66 schools have neither, according to a Notebook analysis of teacher staffing patterns.

Increasingly, students are getting art and music instruction through extracurricular programs and short-term visits from outside artists, not as part of their everyday learning.

Still, CEO Paul Vallas maintains that the District is not “shortchanging” the arts. Among other things, he said, it is one of the few in the country to write a core curriculum for the arts, has expanded partnerships with local arts organizations, plans to open at least two new creative and performing arts high schools, started programs in Asian and Puerto Rican music, and recently invested $1.7 million to buy instruments to restore high school bands and orchestras.

“We’ve made progress in all areas except for full-time art and music teachers,” Vallas said. “Nobody can tell me there’s been slippage here on my watch.”

As of May, 133 District schools – 50 percent – have no full-time music teacher, and 121 have no full-time art teacher (see list). These are higher numbers than four years ago, when Philadelphia Citizens for Children and Youth produced a report on declining numbers of art and music teachers just before Vallas took the reins of the District. That report said 82 schools did not have full-time art teachers, and 83 lacked full-time music teachers.

Since 2002-03, as District enrollment has declined, the number of art teachers in the District has declined by 16 percent, compared to a reduction in the overall teacher workforce of 5 percent. For music teachers, the decline has been about 7 percent.

Racially isolated schools, those at which more than 90 percent of the students are non-white, are somewhat more likely than other schools to lack music and art teachers. Seventy percent of the 66 schools with neither art nor music are racially isolated, compared to 62 percent of all District schools.

The median poverty rate of the schools with no art or music teacher is 79 percent, which is the same as the District’s rate. However, few magnet schools or schools in the Northeast, which have the highest percentages of middle-class students, lack both art and music teachers.

The decision whether to hire or retain art and music teachers rests with principals, who must juggle testing demands and wish-lists with available funds. Most schools have seen their budgets and teacher allotments shrink over the past several years, even as they are being held more accountable for student progress.

Vallas said that much of the increase in schools without music or art is due to decisions by education management organizations (EMOs) to drop those subjects, not to choices by District-run schools. Over 40 schools were turned over by the SRC to EMOs in 2002 as part of a privatization reform strategy.

Another factor in the increase in the number of schools without art or music, Vallas said, has been the creation of more than a dozen new small high schools, whose budgets cannot support a wide diversity of offerings.

“The ideal is to have 17 or 18 kids in each class and an art and music teacher and librarian in every school,” said Vallas. “But funding doesn’t permit that. We’re doing everything we can within the resources we have.”

The federal No Child Left Behind law requires schools to improve reading and math test scores each year. While most city schools haven’t reached NCLB’s targets, test scores have been improving overall, especially in the lower grades.

But for art and music teachers used to developing children’s creativity on a daily basis and finding and nurturing raw talent in some of the city’s poorest neighborhoods, that is small consolation. The neediest children may be denied art and music instruction even where it’s available because they must spend more time on reading and math skills, they say.

“One of the most serious omissions in the education of young people in Philadelphia is the shameful fact that most of our lowest-income children have no benefit of art or music in the daily program at their schools, not just ‘afterschool’ or ‘occasional enrichment,’ said Jo-Anna Moore, coordinator of art education at Tyler School of Art at Temple. “It is actually an income or class issue that the kids who could benefit dramatically from the richest and most diverse education opportunities have the least. Surely we know that this is wrong.”

Lynne Horoschak, her counterpart at Moore College of Art who spent 36 years in the District, said that the focus on reading and math skills has all but crowded out inventive, project-based learning.

“The ability to integrate is gone,” Horoschak said. “All the time is needed for reading/language arts and math.” Such projects as “having students write a play about the Renaissance” lose out because of the focus on test preparation. She said that when veteran art teachers retire, they’re often not replaced, and programs they’ve spent years building die out.

Dennis Creedon, the District’s administrator for creative and performing arts, acknowledged that No Child Left Behind has altered the priorities of many principals, who may opt to hire an extra reading teacher rather than replace an art or music teacher who retires.

So many principals decided to drop art that the District would have had to lay off teachers. But officials intervened to make sure all current teachers were placed, sometimes picking up the cost centrally, Creedon said.

“Art as well as social studies is not tested, so what is taught is what is tested,” he said. He said that principals and parents often don’t understand the academic benefits that art and music instruction can have.

Creedon also said that finding qualified teachers is a problem, especially in music. He said many colleges are turning out vocal music teachers who are not proficient pianists, which they must be to accompany their students. “We don’t hire you if you can’t pass a practical exam,” he said.

There are three kinds of music teachers in the District: those who teach theory and vocal music full-time, band and orchestra directors in high schools, and itinerant teachers who travel among schools teaching instruments to selected students. This year, he said, the District has 73 itinerant instrumental music teachers spread among 187 schools, five more than last year.

Some principals say they want art and music teachers, but can’t find them. Pat Mazzuca, principal of Roberto Clemente Middle School, said she advertised for a music teacher last year and got “no suitable candidates.” So she filled the position with a computer teacher instead.

Kerri McGinley, in her first year as principal of Dobson Elementary, a K-8 school in Manayunk, doesn’t have that option. With just 310 students, Dobson has just one class in each grade, and McGinley inherited two full-time prep teachers, who are in computers and gym.

Fortunately, she said, she has a literacy teacher who has set up an extracurricular drama and music program. The students put on “Cinderella” this year and plan to do “Annie” next year, raising the money for rights.

Yet, she worries about who gets to participate. Half of Dobson’s students are bused in, and many of them can’t stay after school because there is no late bus. Another issue is that students who need afterschool remediation are shut out of participating in arts activities.

Ralph Burnley, principal of Central East Middle School, has no music teacher and says he can’t afford to hire one. But his school has two part-time instrumental teachers, and a teacher with a master’s degree in theater education runs a drama program that touches most students in the sixth-through-eighth grade school.

“We haven’t seen any external pressure from anybody downtown to replace arts or music teachers with test prep or with programs that fit directly into reading and or math,” Burnley said. He noted that a new building being constructed for Central East will include a drama and music room.

“Art and music has been an ongoing, passionate thing here,” he said. “I’ve been to drama productions in the spring, and I’ve seen kids turn around as a result of it.”

Maestros de arte y música a tiempo completo: cada vez hay menos

2006-05-24T13:28:00+00:00

This article was originally published in The Notebook. In August 2020, The Notebook became Chalkbeat Philadelphia.

Una vez, el Distrito Escolar de Filadelfia fue un oasis de instrucción en las artes, y prácticamente cada escuela tenía maestros certificados de música y de arte. Hoy en día, está luchando por reconstruir esa reputación mientras enfrenta menos ingresos, una escasez de maestros cualificados, y presión para que le dedique más tiempo a la lectura y a las matemáticas.

Actualmente, menos de la tercera parte de las escuelas públicas de la ciudad tienen maestros de arte y de música. La mayoría de las demás tienen uno o el otro pero 66 escuelas no tienen ninguno, de acuerdo a un análisis que hizo el Notebook de los patrones de contratación de maestros.

Cada vez más, los estudiantes están recibiendo la instrucción de arte y de música mediante programas extracurriculares y visitas a corto plazo de artistas, y no como parte de su programa diario de aprendizaje.

Aún así, el CEO Paul Vallas sostiene que el Distrito no está “siendo injusto” con las artes. Entre otras cosas, dijo, el Distrito es uno de los pocos en el país que prepara un currículo básico en las artes, tiene colaboraciones expandidas con organizaciones locales de arte, está planificando abrir dos nuevas escuelas superiores para artes creativas e interpretativas en la ciudad, ha comenzado programas en música asiática y puertorriqueña, y recientemente invirtió $1,7 millones en la compra de instrumentos para reestablecer las bandas y orquestas de las escuelas superiores.

“Hemos progresado en todas las áreas, excepto en lo que respecta a tener maestros a tiempo completo de arte y de música,” dijo Vallas. “Nadie puede decirme que el estándar ha bajado mientras yo he estado aquí.”

Este mes, 133 escuelas del Distrito – 50 por ciento – no tienen un maestro a tiempo completo de música, y 121 no tienen un maestro a tiempo completo de arte (vea la lista). Estos números son mayores que los de hace cuatro años, cuando la organización Philadelphia Citizens for Children and Youth (Ciudadanos de Filadelfia para los Niños y la Juventud) produjo un informe sobre la reducción en el número de maestros de arte y de música justo antes de que Vallas tomara las riendas del Distrito. Entonces, 82 escuelas no tenían maestros a tiempo completo de arte, y 83 no tenían maestros a tiempo completo de música.

Desde el 2002-03, el número de maestros de arte en el Distrito se ha reducido en un 16 por ciento, en comparación a la reducción de toda la fuerza laboral de maestros del 5 por ciento. Para los maestros de música, la reducción ha sido aproximadamente del 7 por ciento.

Las escuelas con mayor tendencia a no tener maestros de música y de arte son las escuelas racialmente aisladas, en las que más del 90 por ciento de los estudiantes no son blancos. Setenta por ciento de las 66 escuelas que no tienen maestros ni de arte ni de música son racialmente aisladas, en comparación con el 62 por ciento de las escuelas del Distrito.

La tasa de pobreza promedio en las escuelas que no tienen maestros de arte ni de música es 79 por ciento, igual a la tasa del Distrito. Sin embargo, unas pocas escuelas magnet o escuelas en el Noreste que tienen los porcentaje más elevados de estudiantes de clase media, tampoco tienen maestros de arte ni de música.

La decisión de contratar o retener los maestros recae sobre los principales, quienes tienen que manejar las exigencias de los exámenes de aptitud y todo tipo de peticiones en base a los fondos disponibles. La mayoría de las escuelas han visto una reducción en sus presupuestos y en los maestros asignados durante los últimos años, a la vez que se les responsabiliza cada vez más por el progreso de los estudiantes.

Vallas dijo que el aumento en escuelas sin música y sin arte se debe en gran parte a que las organizaciones de administración educativa (EMO por sus siglas en inglés) decidieron no seguir ofreciendo esas materias, y no por opción de las escuelas administradas por el Distrito. En 2002 la SRC le transfirió más de 40 escuelas a las EMO como parte de una estrategia de reforma mediante privatización.

Otro factor en el aumento en el número de escuelas sin arte ni música, dijo Vallas, ha sido la creación de más de una docena de nuevas escuelas superiores pequeñas, cuyos presupuestos no pueden afrontar una amplia diversidad de ofrecimientos.

“Lo ideal sería que cada escuela tuviese 17 o 18 estudiantes por salón, un maestro de arte, uno de música y una bibliotecaria,” dijo Vallas. “Pero los fondos no lo permiten. Estamos haciendo todo lo que podemos con los recursos que tenemos.”

La Ley Que Ningún Niño Quede Atrás (NCLB, por sus siglas en inglés) requiere que las escuelas mejoren las puntuaciones en los exámenes de lectura y matemáticas todos los años. Aunque la mayoría de las escuelas de la ciudad no han cumplido con las metas de la NCLB, las puntuaciones de los exámenes han estado mejorando en términos generales, especialmente en los grados más bajos.

Esto no es de mucho consuelo para los maestros de arte y de música, que están acostumbrados a desarrollar la creatividad de los niños a diario y a encontrar y cultivar talento en algunos de los vecindarios más pobres de la ciudad. A los niños más necesitados se les podría estar negando la instrucción de arte y de música aún cuando está disponible porque tienen que dedicarle más tiempo a la lectura y a la matemática, dicen ellos.

“Una de las omisiones más graves en la educación de los jóvenes de Filadelfia es el hecho vergonzoso de que la mayoría de nuestros niños de bajos ingresos no tienen el beneficio de contar con arte o música en el programa diario escolar, en vez de sólo ‘después de la escuela’ o como un ‘enrique-cimiento ocasional’, dijo Jo-Anna Moore, coordinadora de educación en arte en la Escuela de Arte Tyler de la Temple University. “En realidad es un problema que se reduce a ingresos o clase, porque los niños que pudieran beneficiarse drásticamente de las oportunidades educativas más ricas y más diversas son los que menos las tienen. Definitivamente sabemos que esto está mal.”

Lynne Horoschak, su colega en el Moore College of Art que dedicó 36 años en el Distrito, dijo que el enfoque en las destrezas de lectura y matemáticas solamente ha logrado desplazar el aprendizaje inventivo y basado en proyectos.

“Ya no existe la habilidad de integrar,” dijo Horoschak. “Todo el tiempo se necesita para las artes de lectura/lenguage y las matemáticas.” Proyectos como “pedirle a los estudiantes que escriban una obra teatral sobre el Renacimiento” ya no se usan porque el enfoque está en la preparación para el examen. Ella dijo que cuando los maestros veteranos de arte se retiran, a menudo no se reemplazan y los programas que fomentaron por años simplemente se desvanecen.

Dennis Creedon, el administrador para las artes creativas e interpretativas del Distrito, reconoció que la ley Que Ningún Niño Quede Atrás ha alterado las prioridades de muchos principales, quienes podrían optar por contratar a un maestro adicional de lectura en lugar de reemplazar a un maestro de arte o de música que se retire.

“El arte, al igual que los estudios sociales, no es un tema de examen, y por eso lo que se enseña es lo del examen,” dijo. Añadió que los principales y los padres a menudo no entienden los beneficios académicos que la enseñanza de arte y de música puede tener.

Creedon también dijo que es difícil encontrar maestros cualificados, especialmente en música. Señaló que muchas universidades están produciendo maestros de canto que no saben tocar bien el piano, y esta es una destreza que se requiere para poder acompañar a los estudiantes. “Si no pasas el examen práctico, no te podemos contratar,” dijo él.

Hay tres tipos de maestros de música en el Distrito, los que enseñan teoría y canto a tiempo completo, los directores de banda y orquesta en las escuelas superiores, y los maestros itinerantes que van de escuela en escuela enseñándole a tocar instrumentos a estudiantes selectos. Este año, dijo, el Distrito ha tenido 73 maestros de música iti-nerantes enseñando música instrumental en 187 escuelas, cinco más que el año pasado.

Algunos principales dicen que quieren maestros de arte y de música, pero que no los pueden encontrar. Pat Mazzuca, principal de la Escuela Intermedia Roberto Clemente, dijo que el año pasado puso un anuncio para un maestro de música y “no encontró candidatos adecuados.” Por eso, cubrió la plaza con un maestro de computadoras.

Kerri McGinley, en su primer año como principal de la Elemental Dobson, una escuela de Kinder a octavo grado en Manayunk, no tiene esa opción. Con solamente 310 estudiantes, Dobson tiene un salón para cada grado y McGinley heredó dos maestros de preparación a tiempo completo, que enseñan computadoras y educación física.

Afortunadamente, dijo ella, tiene un maestro de lectura y escritura que ha establecido un programa extracurricular de teatro y música. Los estudiantes montaron una producción de “Cenicienta” este año y tienen planes de montar “Anita”, la huerfanita el año próximo. Ahora están recaudando los fondos para adquirir los derechos de autor.

Sin embargo, a ella le preocupa que no todos pueden participar. La mitad de los estudiantes de la Dobson son transportados en autobús, y muchos de ellos no se pueden quedar en la escuela porque no hay una ruta más tarde. Otro problema es que los estu-diantes que tienen que tomar cursos remediativos en las tardes no pueden participar en las actividades de arte.

Ralph Burnley, principal de la Escuela Intermedia Central East, no tiene maestro de música y dice que no tiene los fondos para contratar uno. Sin embargo, su escuela tiene dos maestros de música instrumental a tiempo parcial, y una maestra con maestría en teatro que tiene un programa de actuación en el que participa la mayoría de los estudiantes de sexto a octavo grado.

“Nadie en la ciudad nos ha presionado para que reemplacemos a los maestros de arte o de música con maestros para preparación o con programas específicos de lectura o matemáticas,” dijo Burnley. Notó que un edificio nuevo que se está construyendo para la Central East incluirá un salón de teatro y música.

“Aquí el arte y la música han sido algo continuo, y los hacemos con pasión,” dijo. “He asistido a las producciones teatrales en la primavera, y visto cómo los niños cambian como resultado.”

Despite safety net, are some students being left behind?

2004-09-22T23:00:00+00:00

This article was originally published in The Notebook. In August 2020, The Notebook became Chalkbeat Philadelphia.

Last fall, as the School District rolled out its new core curriculum, the new watchword for instruction was "rigor." Rigor meant teaching to proficiency – teaching the concepts and skills that students are expected to master at their grade level according to state standards.

The adoption of the core curriculum was supposed to signal an end to low expectations and the practice of teaching to the lowest level of students in each class. But the contradiction the District had to confront was that while the content of the curriculum expected students to be proficient (or nearly so), the majority of Philadelphia’s students were performing at significantly lower levels.

A classroom would typically have many students two or more years behind in reading and math. In my own eighth grade classroom at the beginning of the year, fewer than one out of five students read on grade level.

To bridge this gap the District promotes a range of instructional strategies and programs to address the needs of students who are not achieving at expected levels. The success of these approaches is critical to the commitment to teaching at grade level.

This safety net to insure that struggling students do not fall further behind begins with how teachers are expected to teach but also includes other programs in the classroom and school:

Differentiated instruction: Because children have different learning styles, teachers are expected to employ a variety of strategies and materials. Understanding this can allow teachers to present new or difficult concepts in ways that will maximize student progress. For example, some students might respond to a question about a character’s conflict in literature by writing a poem about it, others by drawing a picture and still others by writing an essay.

Cooperative learning: Teachers are encouraged to group students together in a variety of ways, in part to help students with deficiencies in math and reading. For example, two students, a strong reader and a weak one, are paired together to read a particular selection. In math, students work collectively to solve problems.

Small group instruction: Guided reading, in which students are divided into small groups by reading levels and meet several times a week with their teacher, is a mandated part of the literacy curriculum. According to the District’s literacy framework, it is primarily through this activity that slower readers learn the skills that can move them forward. Flexible grouping is also encouraged in other subjects, particularly math.

Diagnostic assessment: Every six weeks, students take "benchmark" tests in reading and math to measure student understanding of the material taught in the six-week cycle. Teachers are expected to use the results of these tests to design instruction that will address weaknesses. Annual TerraNova tests also provide teachers with information for understanding students’ strengths and weaknesses.

Comprehensive Student Assistance Process (CSAP): This is an early intervention program to insure that students who are struggling academically or behaviorally get the help needed. The state requires that all students who are held back a grade go through CSAP. In this process, teachers refer students, and then a team meets to develop a strategy and identify how it will be implemented. If this is not successful, a more high-powered team meets to consider additional remedies, such as referral for psychological evaluation and possible placement in special eduction.

Remedial programs: The extended day and summer school programs offer intensive remediation in reading and math following the core curriculum. Attendance is mandatory for those who are not meeting promotion standards. Schools also have some pullout programs to help struggling students.

Holes in the safety net

This elaborate safety net suggests that the District has made a serious effort to address the problem of low academic achievement in a comprehensive way and has committed more resources to make it happen than in the past, particularly through programs like extended day and summer school.

Still the District is a long way from having a program that will "lift all boats." The primary problem, as is so often the case when it comes to urban education, is a lack of resources.

The instructional approaches advocated by the District are compromised by the high ratio of students to teachers. While there are highly skilled teachers who successfully employ cooperative learning and small group instruction, other teachers are reluctant to even try. This reluctance will not be overcome simply by professional development. Teacher concern with control and the tendency to rely on whole class instruction is a reflection of the real problems associated with large, heterogeneous classes.

Guided reading, the centerpiece of the effort to close the literacy gap, is the source of widespread teacher frustration because of difficulties in engaging those students who are not meeting with the teacher. The problem is exacerbated in many classrooms by the sheer number of reading groups, making it difficult to meet each group frequently (in my classroom I had seven groups). In many schools, rosters have been arranged so that another teacher assists the regular teacher during this time. What’s really needed is a corps of reading teachers to lower class size for the whole literacy block.

The CSAP process is also badly undercut by a lack of resources. A CSAP referral requires a good deal of paperwork, some observation of the student and anecdotal recordkeeping by the teacher, a meeting with colleagues, and contact with a parent. Every student who has serious academic, social or emotional problems should be "CSAPed," and all students who might face retention must be "CSAPed." This places a considerable demand on teachers’ time, but no additional time is made available for this purpose. Many children who should be referred never are, and those who are referred do not get quality attention.

A serious problem with the benchmark testing program is that inadequate technology means teachers often do not get results back early enough to effectively use the data to re-teach and remediate. Teachers have also complained that the tests are not sufficiently aligned with the content they are teaching. While these kinks may be worked out as the program enters its second year, a more fundamental issue is the amount of time spent assessing students rather than engaging them in learning.

In comparison, the extended day and summer school programs are areas of strength and progress. Classes are smaller. Materials – at least in math – closely follow the curriculum and are in a form that is accessible for students. Students can usually experience immediate improvement in their regular classes. Of course not all students who need the extra help attend and not all who do attend are motivated to learn – a problem that underlines the importance of the CSAP process and the interrelationship of these distinct initiatives.

High-stakes testing leaves children behind

Some students are also being left behind because of the way a growing national focus on high-stakes testing pervades and – some would argue – drives the core curriculum. The drive to reach targets for Adequate Yearly Progress (AYP) as defined by the No Child Left Behind Act leads to a practice called "triage;" certain students are targeted for extra attention because past test performance suggests that their test scores can be bumped up from one performance category to the next – for example, from Basic to Proficient.

A student at the lower end of Below Basic may make dramatic progress and move to the upper end, but this does not help a school meet its performance targets. Students not likely to move up to the next performance category don’t get the extra resources or attention. Faced with limited resources and the threat of punitive measures if they don’t make AYP, schools naturally try to get the most "bang for their buck" and concentrate on certain students at the expense of others.

Some would say a "test prep" mentality infects the core curriculum and promotes the teaching of discrete skills at the expense of the interrelatedness of knowledge. Many teachers argue that the core curriculum, at least as it is interpreted by many administrators, discourages thematic instruction or approaches that develop deeper motivation among students, impacting negatively on all learners, but particularly those who have been failed by traditional schooling.

So while the School District provides what appears to be a good framework for insuring that low-achieving students are not left in the dust in the drive for proficiency, this framework can’t be effective without an infusion of resources – most critically, more trained teachers with fewer students and more time to do the job required of them. Nor can the framework succeed without a serious reevaluation of how we measure student and school progress.

Failing our children

2004-03-11T00:00:00+00:00

This article was originally published in The Notebook. In August 2020, The Notebook became Chalkbeat Philadelphia.

To the editors:

I am a concerned parent who has two children in the Philadelphia public school system. My son was beaten by three boys during recess at his elementary school. The School District transferred him to another elementary school, said to be one of the top public schools in the city.

My son has a hard time keeping up with schoolwork as a result of coming from a low-performing school to a high-performing school. A teacher at his school admitted to me that the curriculum speed is fast and that she and her colleagues have no choice but to do as they are told.

I spoke to Paul Vallas about the teacher’s concern, but he offered me plenty of excuses.

He mentioned the need for my son to attend Extended Day. After 6 hours of schooling, my son is tired. He is bussed from Center City to Kensington where we reside. If he stays for Extended Day, he has no way to get home.

The curriculum seems to be taught at a fast pace to intentionally fail some students. During slavery Black children were forbidden to learn to read and write. The legacy of dumbing down Black children is alive and well.

We need a District CEO who is willing to give and receive ideas as to how to make public education in Philadelphia excellent.

Christine Wilson
Philadelphia

CEO Vallas commits to a fresh start

2002-09-25T11:33:00+00:00

This article was originally published in The Notebook. In August 2020, The Notebook became Chalkbeat Philadelphia.

While the big story in Philadelphia as schools opened in September was the changeover to private management at 45 schools, the District’s new CEO Paul Vallas " recently arrived from Chicago " has been hammering away at a much broader set of plans for school improvement.

After six months where the School Reform Commission (SRC) focused on plans to turn over various District functions to outside companies and organizations, Vallas’s first weeks were a whirlwind of announcements of new initiatives coming out of the central office. His plans addressed issues from facilities to after-school programs to discipline and truancy.

The new CEO also quickly assembled a new leadership team, brought closure to contentious negotiations over the contracts governing the new private managers of schools, and stepped up efforts to address the problem of lead in school drinking water.

Stepping in to his job as public controversy grew over the SRC’s approval of a succession of large contracts to outside
consultants, Vallas renegotiated some contracts and put others on hold. He reversed an SRC decision to hire private school manager Edison Schools Inc. to play a major consulting role to the central office.

Vallas’s insistence on having "redundant systems" to ensure smooth operations in the privatized schools left no doubt that he envisions not only a strong central office but a continued role for the School District in the privately managed schools.

"I’m keeping everybody on a short leash until I have a confidence level that schools are running smoothly and schools are on track," Vallas said.

Here are some of Vallas’s major announcements:

He promises to increase the District’s budget for capital projects, spending $1 billion over four years to improve its aging facilities, build nine new and smaller high schools, and convert middle schools to high schools or K-8 schools.
After-school programs will open in October for second through eighth graders at 100 elementary schools, to give extra help four days a week. A program for high school students is in the works, and Vallas has also promised to dramatically expand the District’s summer school program.
He plans to hire parents as outreach workers to tackle the District’s truancy problem. Absenteeism in the District averaged 12.9 percent last year, with about half of that rate accounted for by truancy.
He announced the formation of "quality review teams" under the District’s new accountability office; this year, four teams will perform school evaluations and make recommendations at the 86 "partnership schools" affected by the SRC’s reform plan, and at the 14 charter schools whose charters are up for renewal
He announced a new "zero tolerance" policy (see Discipline plan: zero tolerance, expand CEP), an end to the School District practice of transferring students from one school to another for disciplinary reasons, and an expansion of "alternative school" placements through a contract with the Texas-based company CEP (Community Education Partners Inc.).

Vallas was fortunate to take over the District at a point when for the first time in years there was no immediate cash crunch. As promised in the school takeover agreement between the mayor and governor, the state provided a $75 million funding increase and the city came up with $45 million plus a $300 million bond issue to buy the District time to address its structural deficit.

Lots of loose ends

The new CEO had his hands full prior to the opening of school with many loose ends from the restructuring plan that targeted 70 schools for overhaul – 45 under private management, 21 under a District restructuring initiative, and four as charter schools.

Barely a month before the opening of school he concluded difficult negotiations with the three companies, two universities, and two nonprofits that are involved in taking over management of 45 partnership schools. These educational management organizations (EMOs) secured extra funding for their schools, but less than the governor had wanted them to receive.

Each of the EMOs brings a different approach and level of intervention to the project of improving their schools. At one end of the spectrum, both Temple University and the University of Pennsylvania are providing academic support and developing improvement plans but are not managing operations. Edison was the most aggressive in implementing changes, bringing in a whole new curriculum and making staffing changes.

The status of some schools was unclear until late in the summer. The SRC reversed its original plan to convert five schools to "independent school" status. Two of those schools – Bethune and Pepper – were ultimately assigned to be run by Victory Schools, and Pickett was assigned to Foundations Inc.

Three of the four schools targeted to be charters – Central East, Morris, and Vare – were given more time to make the transition. Belmont School in West Philadelphia is now functioning as a charter school but still required to serve all students in its boundaries.

Teacher turnover, particularly at schools taken over by Edison, meant that there were hundreds of vacancies still to be filled over the summer. By September, almost 500 new teachers were in place, and the shortages were concentrated in special education positions and a few hard-to-staff specialty subjects that have posed chronic hiring problems for the District.

Some of the SRC’s reform goals were not achieved. Except for four schools targeted to be charters, the other so-called "partnership schools" targeted for reform do not have designated community partners. Nor have the members of proposed Education Reform Advisory Councils (ERACs), designed to provided community input on a neighborhood basis and citywide, been designated. Vallas said ERAC members would be named in October.

But with all the changes taking place, District officials said they were delighted with the smooth start.

"It was indeed a great opening," commented SCR Chair James Nevels.

Not everything was smooth for Edison at its 20 schools, however. Just days before the start of the school year, trucks rolled up to Edison’s schools and took away many of the supplies that had previously been delivered. The company contended that they were nonessential supplies and said their contract was not adequate to cover the costs of what had been delivered.

Vallas expressed distress both at the Edison supply cuts and at a decision by the company to eliminate nonteaching assistants (NTAs) and supportive services assistants (SSAs) at their schools. Edison also made cuts to the secretarial staff.

Prior to school opening, Vallas ordered Edison to restore one NTA and two SSAs to each of their schools to provide more adult supervision.

One week into the school year, a series of fights and other incidents at Shaw Middle School, managed by Edison, highlighted a concern that Edison had made too deep a cutback in non-teaching personnel.

Jerry Jordan, vice president of the Philadelphia Federation of Teachers said the cuts at all the Edison schools have made teachers anxious about safety.

"When youngsters are walking in the halls at these schools, there is nobody to monitor them," he said. He said he was particularly concerned about the climate at Edison’s middle schools, which are still operating with substantially fewer NTAs than in the past. Edison officials say that NTAs are not a necessary component of their approach to discipline.

Districtwide, chronic staffing problems meant that some students opened the year without a regular teacher in the classroom. As of September 20, there were still over 100 teacher vacancies and an additional 1,200 teachers working with emergency certifications.

Vallas has created a new office, headed by former principal Tomas Hanna, to coordinate an initiative on teacher recruitment and retention.