Board of Education Action Meeting: August 22, 2024
by Lisa Haver
At its August action meeting, the Board of Education passed thirty-six agenda items totaling over $79 million. They also approved three 5-year charter renewals, whose projected costs–at least $85 million total, based on the current district budget –were not posted. Board member Cheryl Harper was absent, as was Chou-Wing Lam, who has not attended a board meeting since April. At this point, Board Member Lam should have communicated to the public the reason for her third consecutive absence and whether she is able to continue to serve. If she is not able to carry out her duties, she should resign. Most notable about this meeting is what didn’t happen: none of the board members spoke about any of the agenda items or responded to any of the issues that parents, educators, and community members came to testify about. Not one question, not one comment.
Board Renews Three Substandard Charters
The photo above represents the entirety of the presentation given by Charter Schools Office Interim Chief Mariel Ziegler. Even with the paucity of information on the four charter matters– three renewals and one amendment for relocation–not one board member had any questions: on the cost of the renewals; why all three schools–KIPP West Philadelphia, Global Leadership Academy, Philadelphia Hebrew–scored below 50% in academics; why two of the schools served no English Language Learners during the previous 5-year term; why the CEO at GLA makes $100,000 more annually, to operate one school, than Superintendent Tony Watlington does to manage 217 schools; why two of the schools failed to provide the legally required criminal and child abuse background checks for all personnel; why KIPP West Philadlephia charter rated a “Does Not Meet” in finances; why Renaissance charters who promised to turn around schools but failed to do so should not be returned to district management. The board’s actions also ensured that the public could say little about these charter matters; they posted the items after the window for public speakers closed. This first and only “presentation” on the renewals was made just minutes before they voted on them. Despite repeated calls from APPS to hold public renewal hearings, the board’s charter schools office negotiates all charter agreements in private meetings with charter administrators. Finally, the board takes all charter votes in secret, as APPS notes in our official objection before every charter vote, by withholding the content of the agreements from the public. Why does the board take every step to protect charter operators, no matter how poorly they serve their students and families? We must look to the political connections of charters to answer that question. One example: the chair of Philadelphia Hebrew charter’s board is Klissa Thomas, wife of Philadelphia City Councilmember Isiah Thomas. Thomas serves as chair of Council’s education committee. Max Weismann, Thomas’s Director of Communications, also serves on Hebrew’s board.
District Creates Annex in Building They Closed for Safety Reasons
Two years ago, the board executed a back-door closure of Daroff Elementary, a neighborhood school at 56th and Vine. The School Reform Commission approved the hostile takeover of both Daroff and Bluford schools by Universal Companies in 2011 as part of the district’s Renaissance charter program. Universal never came close to fulfilling its promise to turn either school around academically. In 2022, Universal, without explanation, abandoned both Daroff and Bluford elementary schools, stonewalling parents at both schools. Neither the Board of Education nor City Council summoned Universal CEO Penny Nixon or other Universal administrators to explain why they walked away from the two schools. The board voted to take Bluford back as a neighborhood public school and to close Daroff permanently, citing the building’s unsafe and unsanitary conditions. At this meeting, one public speaker, who had attended Daroff years ago, asked the board to explain why that building was now being used as an annex for the Workshop School. No notice of this decision was made at any board meeting. Have Workshop School parents and educators been assessed on the conditions of the building?
Continued Lack of Leadership on Harassment, Censorship Issues
Northeast High School teacher Keziah Ridgeway, in her public testimony, urged the board to vote No on Item 3 for a $1.1 million contract with a company called “Facing History and Ourselves”, whose services would “…aim to equip school communities and administrative offices with the tools and knowledge to engage in controversial discourse through an equity lens in an environment that fosters support and respect for diverse lived experiences.” It appears that after months of hoping that the harassment of district staff by individuals and organizations would simply go away, the board’s solution now is to hire an outside company as a diversion from their own lack of leadership. Since February, Ridgeway and other district teachers and staff have been harassed by individuals and organizations because of their lessons on the ongoing bombing of Palestinians in Gaza by Israeli military forces. That harassment escalated when LED-display trucks with loud sound systems were parked outside their schools and their homes. The teachers, students, and parents who support the targeted educators have come to the board for months, asking the board and the Watlington administration to do something. They have asked for an investigation into the district teachers who publicized the names of the students who presented a research project focusing on the oppression of Palestinians. They asked for the district to bring in professional mediators. They asked for Watlington to meet with Palestinian students; at the May action meeting, they asked Watlington why he canceled the meeting and has yet to reschedule. At this meeting, we saw how the failure of the board and the Watlington administration to tackle this issue has only led to escalation and further harassment. One member of the public, who yelled at the speakers and accused them of interfering with the education of Black students, had to be escorted from the auditorium by security. The board, however, remains silent.
Powel, SLAMS Parents Protest MOU with Drexel
Four West Philadelphia residents, who identified as members of both the Powel Elementary and Science Leadership MIddle School communities, urged the board not to renew a Memorandum of Agreement (MOU) with Drexel University, as outlined in Item 36, which covers both Powel and SLAMS. The item provided no details of the MOU, which had been instituted in April 2018, and there was no link to it in the item. The parents and community members testified that Drexel has failed to keep its commitments to the schools and that the new MOU was drafted without sufficient input from the community.
Board Passes Forty Agenda Items without Comment
The board passed all forty agenda items, most unanimously. There were a couple of abstentions, but no “No” votes were cast. After voting on the four charter items, one roll-call vote, which took just over one minute, was taken for the remaining thirty-six. There was no deliberation on any of the items, including those that several people came to testify about. There was no deliberation on Item 25, which approved contracts totaling $31.6 million to three outside companies for a new Science curriculum. (Last year the board voted to spend $40 million on new Math and Reading curricula.)
The board members, by their silence, send a message to educators, parents, and community members that what they have to say really doesn’t matter, that their minds have already been made up. They spent over $79 million in taxpayer money without question, comment, or any engagement with the public.
The meeting adjourned at 6:19 PM.
Alliance for Philadelphia Public Schools 