Author: appsphilly.net

The Alliance for Philadelphia Public Schools is a grass-roots organization of parents, community members, and school staff—including teachers, school nurses, librarians, counselors and safety staff—dedicated to the preservation of public schools. APPS is an independent organization with no political or union affiliation. We are entirely self-funded and do not take financial donations from outside sources. All members donate their time and receive no salary.

APPS Letter to the Board: No More Barring Community from Public Meetings

June 27, 2023

Dear President Streater and Members of the Board,

We write to ask that the board end its practice of barring members of the public from attending action meetings.  

In a May 10, 2023 email, we asked why the board, at your April 20 action meeting, had set up only 82 seats in an auditorium with a 240-person capacity.  Members of the public, including APPS member Ilene Poses, were told by security that they could not enter the auditorium because they were not on the speaker list. Security then directed them to seats in the atrium. If people wanted just to watch the meeting, they could have stayed home and watched their own television. They came to attend in person and in many cases to support members of their own organizations who were allowed to speak.

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Has the Board Made the District Better in Its First Five Years?

Preview: June 29, 2023 Board of Education Meeting

by Lisa Haver

uly 2023 marks five years since the reinstatement of the Board of Education after years of state control. Four of the nine original members still sit on the board.  What has the board accomplished in that time? Have they made education better for the city’s children? There are fewer school librarians than in 2018. Class size remains too high.  Standardized testing still determines where resources go and how students, teachers and schools are judged. Substandard charter schools continue to drain money, much of it for exorbitant CEO salaries. And when members of the public come to be heard on these and other issues, they find that the board’s speaker suppression policies bar them from speaking and give them a scant two minutes–if they are lucky enough to make the list. Recently, the board has actually barred members of the public from even entering the auditorium. What does the board tout as its biggest accomplishment? Goals and Guardrails, their new data system that labels schools “on-track” or “off-track”, and which they spend up to two hours analyzing every month.    

At this meeting, the board will vote on 104 official items and spend approximately $207, 084, 246. (Five items each cost $10 million or more, including Item 58 at $69 million.) Twenty-five of the items appear to be no-bid. Despite the number of items and the total costs, the board will still allow only 30 general speakers. 

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Democracy Dies in Darkness

Board of Education Action Meeting:  May 25, 2023

 by Lisa Haver and Lynda Rubin

The board’s speaker suppression policies are now doing double duty: not just to keep members of the community from speaking but to keep them out of the room altogether. A guard at the door to the auditorium told Lynda Rubin she could go in because she was on the speaker list but barred Lisa Haver because she wasn’t.  Haver had tried to sign up but was told by the board that she would not be one of the 30 chosen speakers. She told the guard he could arrest her but that she was going in. Last month some APPS members were detained downstairs because they were not on the list.  

We wrote to the board after the April incident, pointing out that they had only set up 82 chairs in an auditorium that seats 240 people. Thus, the same people who were denied the right to speak now no longer have the right to be present. Did the board not want APPS to witness its voting to spend over $500 million in taxpayer money on 78 official items?  Or voting on a charter application that would cost the district hundreds of millions over the next five years?   A governmental body not accountable to the public can become tyrannical and dictatorial. We need an elected school board.

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Cherelle Parker can restore hope for Philadelphians with real educational reforms | Opinion

The following commentary was written by APPS co-founder Lisa Haver, and published in  Billy Penn on May 25, 2023

Students at McCall School in Center City in 2022. (Nathan Morris for Billy Penn)

What does Cherelle Parker’s nomination for mayor, and likely election in November, mean for the future of public education in Philadelphia? At this point, it’s hard to say.  

During the many quick-fire forums and debates leading up to the primary,  Parker’s responses on public school questions were similar to other candidates, with promises to fill the Board of Education with people who share her vision. 

As the details of her vision come into focus between now and the general election, Parker should make clear her commitment to hearing from the public — in particular, district stakeholders. 

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