April 2021 – Page 2 – Alliance for Philadelphia Public Schools

Eyes on the Board of Education: April 22, 2021

by Karel Kilimnik

Despite being in an earth-shattering pandemic rocking the entire world, District leadership, with Board approval, continues to implement corporate practices into the administration of our School District. April brings more administrative requests for contracts instead of a commitment to rebuild its own infrastructure. Board Member Lisa Salley questioned this practice at last month’s action meeting. Teachers, principals, and other school staff are moved around like pieces on a chessboard instead of consulted for their knowledge and experience in working with students and families. The Board creates Advisory Committees and Councils to mask the Board’s actual quashing of the voices from school communities. The Board has refused to rescind its regressive speaker policies limiting both the number of speakers and restricting everyone to two minutes, down from three. Both student and adult speakers were barred from speaking in February and March. APPS and UrbEd, represented by the ACLU, has sued the Board in Common Pleas Court. We have sent letters to all City Councilmembers urging them to speak out and to direct the Board, over whom Council has some oversight, to end the silencing of the public. We have also created a petition urging the Board to rescind these speaker procedures.

The Board abolished three of its four committees, significantly lessening the public’s opportunity to be heard. The last time a report was presented by a member of the Parent and Community Advisory Council was almost six months ago. Earlier this month the Council hosted a “Conversation Session”, but the April 22 action meeting agenda has no item for any report from that session.

Trust in both the District and Board erodes further during the several botched attempts to open school buildings and the delays in posting a dashboard to track covid cases in buildings with students and staff present. The Hite administration failed to disclose to anyone–parents, students, educators–that only students returning to buildings would be taking standardized tests. Since only 30% of parents opted for hybrid learning, what is the rationale for administering PSSAs to only those students? Who does it benefit other than the powerful testing companies?

City Council and Mayor Kenney Must Direct Board to Rescind Regressive Speaker Policies

This week, APPS sent the following letters regarding the Board of Education’s speaker policy to mayor Kenney and each member of Philadelphia City Council:

April 14, 2021

Dear Councilmember,

On behalf of the members of the Alliance for Philadelphia Public Schools, we are writing to ask that you take a stand against the Board of Education’s silencing of the public at its public meetings.

Over the past three months, the Board has imposed a succession of changes in their official speaker policy designed to silence their critics. The Board has, for the first time in District history, implemented an arbitrary cap of thirty adult speakers and ten student speakers. No matter how many official items are on the agenda, or which urgent issues arise—closing of schools for lead and asbestos toxicity, reopening schools during the COVID crisis, for example—the number of speakers will remain capped, preventing members of the public from being heard.

The Board has also imposed a two-minute limit on all speakers. No other governmental body, including City Council, cuts speakers off after two minutes. This new policy makes it difficult to present a coherent argument for or against any official item. It also reduces the number of issues any one speaker can address.

The Board has also made it more difficult for people to submit written testimony and to have that testimony heard during Board meetings.

Unjustly silencing critics is backward move from Philly school board

A Philly school board meeting on March 18, 2021. Kristen A. Graham

The following commentary was written by APPS co-founder Lisa Haver and published by The Inquirer on April 12, 2021.

In February 2015, School Reform Commission (SRC) chair William Green made a unilateral decision, with no public vote or notification, to have police search the bags and confiscate the signs of parents and community members who came to be heard on the issue of impending charter expansion. Several members of the Alliance for Philadelphia Public Schools (APPS), a grassroots education group that I cofounded, refused to submit to searches and were detained and had their signs confiscated.

It wasn’t the first time the SRC tried to silence members of the public, and it wouldn’t be the last. Members of grassroots organizations including APPS often found themselves placed at the end of the speaker list despite having signed up first. But the SRC never barred me or other APPS members from speaking.

Things have changed under the current school board. Before the March 25 meeting, three APPS members were notified that although they signed up on time, they would not be placed on the speaker list.

Over the past three months, the board has rolled out several changes in official board policy designed to silence regular critics of district leadership, including an arbitrary cap of 10 students and 30 adults. Speakers who signed up to speak at the Dec. 6 charter hearing saw that the notice now said two minutes, instead of the usual three. When APPS members asked when the board voted on these changes, we were told that these were not policy changes — they were procedural changes — so the board didn’t have to hold a public vote or give public notification.

Even if it were true that decades of precedence could be ignored, what does it say about the board that secrecy is the best policy? Are they turning decades-long policy and precedent on its head to shield themselves and the Hite administration from criticism?