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Dr. Robin Cooper, President of CASA
Category: APPS Reports on the Board of Ed
Board Must Be Fully Present at Meetings
Dear President Wilkerson and Members of the Board,
At every remote meeting held by the Board, a significant portion of the meeting displays only a full-screen digital clock. Public viewers are not able to see any member of the Board or the administration. The public did not see the Board for over seven hours at the first session of the July Action Meeting.
A meeting at which the public is not able to see the Board, especially for hours at a time, cannot be considered a true public meeting.
We request that you make the screen include all members of the Board and Dr. Hite, along with any administrator speaking, for the entirety of the meeting. The digital clock, during public speaking, can take up one square on the screen.
If you convene the second session of the Action Meeting with the same format, we request that you explain at the outset of the session why the present technology prevents you from being seen.
Sincerely,
Lisa Haver
Karel Kilimnik
Ears on the Board of Education: July 23, 2020 (Part 1)
By Diane Payne
In the first week of July, the Board placed a notice of an Action Meeting in its online calendar. The Board placed no banner on the District homepage, and the agenda was not posted until 72 hours before the meeting. The obvious reason to add a special meeting was to discuss the District’s fall reopening plan, but the Agenda contained twenty-six Items. All eight Board members were present. Mayor Kenney has taken no steps to fill the ninth seat, vacant since Chris McGinley resigned in April. The Mayor’s Nominating Panel, which met earlier this year to fill Wayne Walker’s seat, could easily be reconvened to fill this one, and the Mayor could choose from the list of candidates already compiled. In both 2018 and 2020, the Mayor ordered the Panel to meet only in Executive Session, thus violating the state’s Sunshine Act and shutting out the public from the entire process. The abolition of the state-controlled SRC did not result in true local control but in mayoral control.
Continue reading here.
APPS Calls on Board of Education to Vote on District Reopening Plan
Alliance for Philadelphia Public Schools
For immediate release: July 16, 2020
Members of the Alliance for Philadelphia Public Schools, a grass-roots advocacy organization, has called on the Board of Education to vote on the District’s re-opening plan at its special July 23 Action Meeting.
“The plan presented yesterday—during a remote press conference—raises crucial questions about the health and safety of students and staff when they return to in-person classes”, said APPS co-founders Lisa Haver and Karel Kilimnik in a letter to the Board today. “Those questions must be heard and deliberated on by the Board in a public meeting, and the Board, as the governing body of the city’s public schools, must take a vote to approve or reject the Administration’s plan.”
APPS members attended all of last week’s online meetings, billed by the District as “Town Halls” but actually sessions in which members of the public submitted questions. No questions were answered during the sessions, and the District has not yet posted any on its website.
Questions and concerns—about logistics, students receiving special education services, protection for medically vulnerable students and staff, lack of space in common areas, flexibility for working parents, transportation, and more—raised by reporters at the press conference, and by members of the public afterwards, must be answered in more detail at the Board’s meeting next week, for which an agenda has yet to be posted.
APPS is also calling on the Board to mandate re-opening plans from all charter school operators.
“The Board is responsible for the health and safety of all District students, including those attending the District’s 87 charter schools”, said Haver. “The Board must require the same type of detailed re-opening plan from those administrations.”
Dear President Wilkerson and Members of the Board,
APPS members call on the Members of the Board of Education to vote to approve or reject the Administration’s proposed reopening plan at the July 23, 2020 Special Action Meeting. That meeting’s agenda should include consideration of the Advancing Education Safety Plan as an official item.
The AES plan presented yesterday—during a remote press conference—raises crucial questions about the health and safety of students and staff when they return to in-person classes. Those questions must be heard and deliberated on by the Board in a public meeting, and the Board, as the governing body of the city’s public schools, must take a vote to approve or reject the Administration’s plan.
Concerns raised but not answered at last week’s online sessions—about logistics, students receiving special education services, protection for medically vulnerable students and staff, lack of space in common areas, flexibility for working parents, transportation, and more—must be answered by District staff at the meeting.
In addition, the Board must require all charter school operators to submit the same type of detailed reopening plan for each of the 87 District charters. The Board is responsible to assure the health and safety of all of the District’s students, whether they attend District- or charter-managed schools.
We appreciate your attention to these matters and would appreciate a timely response.
Sincerely,
Lisa Haver
Karel Kilimnik
Alliance for Philadelphia Public Schools 