This article was originally published in The Notebook. In August 2020, The Notebook became Chalkbeat Philadelphia.
Members of Philadelphia Student Union came to the School Reform Commission on Wednesday to announce a new student-led campaign against youth violence and encountered a receptive group of commissioners and a superintendent who had already been talking about the "urgency" of the issue.
DeVante Wilson, a senior at Carver High School who is active both in Citywide Student Government and the Student Union, presented the new campaign in public testimony as one aimed at "meeting all forms of violence, physical or systematic, with nonviolence."
Wilson described the campaign as a a three-pronged effort, the first of which is "organizing young people and adults to take a pledge to reject violence in their words, thoughts and actions." In addition, he said, the Student Union wants to "bring communities together to identify the root causes of violence" and then to develop actions that respond to injustice and inequities.
Wilson said inequalities in schools and communities "lead to the birth of violence in our young people and in our community." He concluded with a request for support from the assembled District officials.
"I thank you for this timely speech," responded Superintendent Arlene Ackerman. "I’m interested in talking with you."
The superintendent went on to talk about youth violence as a serious "public health threat" and highlighted a "melee" involving more than 100 students at the Gallery on Tuesday as an example of the challenge. "How could we have prevented this?" Ackerman asked.
Commissioner Johnny Irizarry noted that Ackerman had already raised the issue of youth violence with the commission earlier in the day and called for "a sense of urgency" about the issue.
After the meeting, Ackerman told the media that she had been in separate discussions earlier that day with both Mayor Nutter and the group Mothers in Charge about "the alarming number of incidents" of violence and she said she thought the issue required that "a group of concerned citizens deal with it as a public health threat." She emphasized that the problem goes well beyond the schools.
While complimenting the Student Union and Citywide Student Government, she appeared to take issue with the Student Union’s emphasis on seeking root causes, saying that her focus would be "looking at solutions."
Ackerman noted that she had written an editorial on the subject of youth violence more than a month ago, and "it’s still just as serious."