Category: Eyes and Ears on the SRC (archive)

Ears on the SRC – March 17, 2016

SRC 3-17-16 #2

Rally and Cry

This SRC meeting was preceded by a rally—sponsored by Parents of Wister, NAACP, PFT, APPS, PCAPS, and Parents United—in front of the school district administration building. Speakers addressed the district’s failure to provide the resources needed for thriving public schools. A large and noisy presence of Mastery supporters on the other side of the steps periodically disrupted the speeches of parents and community members, including the president of the local NAACP. Once inside the auditorium, a vocal contingent of the Mastery supporters occasionally ridiculed and disparaged teachers and parents of Wister, as well as those supporting their fight to keep Wister public.

What is noteworthy about this scenario is that it plays right into the hands of the corporate machine. This strategy of pitting community members against each other serves to secure the power and profit of the few over the democratic voice of all. Parents, students, teachers and community members all want the same thing; a fair, equitable and safe education for our children. Although we want the very same thing we find ourselves divided by a promise that some see as salvation for their child while others know is the handing over the democratic rights of every child. The corporate model promises what we all want for our children but comes with two costly price tags: the continued disinvestment of traditional public schools coupled with an alarming loss of democratic rights.

Speakers

Eight members of APPS provided testimony at this SRC meeting: Diane Payne, Deb Grill, Karel Kilimnik, Carol Heinsdorf, Lisa Haver, Barbara Dowdall, Kristin Luebbert, and Robin Lowry. (To see videos of these presentation or read the transcripts, visit APPS members testimony to the Philadelphia School Reform Commission.) The testimonies called out the SRC and Superintendent Hite for a wide range of dereliction of their duties to safeguard public education.

Click here for the rest of the article. 

Eyes on the SRC: March 17, 2016

SRC 12-17-15 #2

by Karel Kilimnik
March 12, 2016

Welcome to the Eighth Edition of Eyes on the SRC.

There are no resolutions directly pertaining to the district’s most recent assault on public education, namely the Hite administration’s placement of four more neighborhood schools into his “Turnaround Network”. This month, we simply follow the continual erosion of school staff and resources and the continued outsourcing of services.

At the Monday February 29 hearing of the Education Committee of City Council, Dr. Hite announced that he would be creating more Turnaround Schools by the end of the week. That Friday, the names of the four elementary schools to be “turned around” were released: Roosevelt, Munoz-Marin, S W Mitchell, and Rhodes. Principals and teachers would have to reapply for their jobs, and the district could eliminate the entire staff if it chose to. A series of community meetings were scheduled for the following week, the first one, at Roosevelt, to be held the following Monday—giving the parents and community minimal notification (shades of the October 2014 SRC last-minute/early morning meeting to cancel the PFT contract). APPS members have attended all four meetings, and the level of anger and frustration voiced by parents and community members is unprecedented. These schools have all been though some kind of conversion—or two—in the past five to ten years. Parents at every school said that they would fight to keep their teachers. District staff has been unable, or unwilling, to answer basic questions such as where the funding will come from, how the conversion would take place, why the decision was made before the community meetings, and why it is necessary to get rid of teachers and principals.

Next SRC meeting: Thursday March 17, 5:30 PM. To register to speak call 215.400.4180 by 4:30 March 16. It’s best to identify yourself as a teacher, parent, or community member as the rules stipulate that only “one member of an organization can register to speak.”(There is another SRC Action Meeting on March 24.)

Plan to attend the rally in support of all schools fighting any kind of turnaround, including the four schools just targeted and the three schools previously named as Renaissance schools—Cooke, Huey, and Wister:
Thursday March 17 at 4:15 on the steps of 440 (before the SRC meeting).

Click here to read the APPS analysis of proposed resolutions to be voted on at the March 17, 2016 meeting of the Philadelphia School Reform Commission.

 

Ears on the SRC: February 16 and 18, 2016

SRC 2-18-16 #!

By Diane Payne
March 5, 2016

APPS Ears on the SRC: February 16, 2016

This special meeting of the SRC was another jam-packed one—35 speakers listed.  The final vote on twelve new charter applications was the sole agenda for this meeting.  Farah Jimenez acted as Interim Chair; Marge Neff was on medical leave but present by phone.

Click here to read the entire Ears on the SRC: February 16 and 18, 2016

Eyes on the SRC: February 18, 2016

SRC 1-21-16

Welcome to the Seventh Edition of Eyes on the SRC.

by Karel Kilimnik

Before we get into the specific resolutions, we want to give an update on rules for speakers, as the SRC has changed them twice over the past two months. Since they won’t vote to make them official policy, you never know when they will change them again. We believe in school governance that is transparent in all aspects. The rules below are from the district website:

Revisions to current practice regarding speaker order: 

The School Reform Commission will be implementing new protocols based on two general principles. First, it is important to group speakers on the same or similar topics at Action Meetings in order to give Commissioners the ability to gain the big picture on each topic. Second, the Commission would like to encourage new voices and topics at meetings. 

Beginning February 18, 2016, the School Reform Commission (SRC) will be enacting the following changes to the order in which speakers testify at SRC Action Meetings:

  • Student speakers will continue to be prioritized and normally will speak first. 
  • Other speakers will be grouped by topic. Topics registered by new speakers, those who did not speak at the previous meeting, will be prioritized.
  • Speakers on resolutions will no longer be prioritized, given that all speakers are heard before votes are taken on resolutions. 

We also want to talk about the ramifications of what happened at the January 21, 2016 meeting. Commissioner Sylvia Simms introduced a motion from the floor at 10 p.m. to return Wister Elementary to the Renaissance list and have Mastery Charter take over its management, in effect publicly overturning the Superintendent’s decision to do an internal turnaround instead.

There was no resolution posted on the agenda, and no resolution was read aloud.  Despite requests from APPS members, Chair Marjorie Neff refused to let any member of the public speak on the resolution–another clear violation of the PA Sunshine Act. 

In fact, the Wister community, because it had been assured that no vote would be taken, was not represented at the meeting. Simms reassured the audience of her full confidence in Hite. You might ask: why do we need a $300,000 superintendent if you don’t support his decisions? Two other SRC members voted to approve Simms’ motion, even though they admitted that the district had used faulty data when it chose Wister in the first place. Mayor Kenney, City Council President Darrell Clarke, Councilwoman Helen Gym and many in the education community have expressed outrage about the SRC’s undemocratic action, which clearly violated the PA Sunshine Act.

The other issue that comes to mind is what criteria will they now use to turn other schools over to charter operators?

Click here for the full post to read Resolutions of Note and APPS comments.

Also see:

APPS Calls on the SRC to Rescind Its Illegal Vote
Alliance for Public School – February 1, 2016

Plan to privatize 3 schools is inconsistent and a gross overreach
The Philadelphia Public School Notebook – February 10, 2016