Category: APPS Reports on the Board of Ed

Ears on the Board of Education: July 9, 2018

SB 7-9-18

by Diane Payne

Local Control Returns!

All nine members of the newly appointed Board of Education were present for this meeting, as were many elected officials and union representatives who took the opportunity to both welcome the new board and to thank for taking on this difficult public service: Mayor James Kenney, Council President Darrell Clarke, Councilmembers Maria Quinones-Sanchez, Helen Gym, Jannie Blackwell, Derek Green, and CASA President Dr. Robin Cooper.

Seven of the nine APPS members in attendance spoke to welcome the board and to advise them that APPS’ mission of defending public education will continue. To see their testimonies, go to APPSPhilly.net.

The nine new board members are: Julia Danzy, Leticia Egea-Hinton, Mallory Fix Lopez, Lee Huang, Maria McColgan, Christopher McGinley, Angela McIver, Wayne Walker, and Joyce Wilkerson.

Election of Board Officers

In its first order of business, the board nominated and elected Chris McGinley to serve as president pro-tempore to manage the meeting until elections for president and vice president could be completed.  McGinley chaired the meeting through the public speakers and subsequent elections. The single nomination for President was Joyce Wilkerson; the subsequent vote was a unanimous “yes.” There were two nominations for Vice-president: Wayne Walker and Julia Danzy.  It was refreshing to see a public deliberation about each candidate prior to the vote. Walker was elected by a 5 to 4 vote. Joyce Wilkerson chaired the remainder of the meeting.

All of the board members took a turn at presenting their first public remarks about their duty to govern the School District of Philadelphia. Unfortunately, this was the first opportunity the public had to hear the views of their new representatives. The remarks all incorporated hope and optimism but were also embedded with the realism of the tough job ahead.  Chris McGinley’s emotional presentation included quotes from Tennyson. The audience responded to Angela McIver’s reminder of the importance of public schools in supporting democracy and embracing all of its sometimes loud and messy components.

Click here to read the rest of the post.

 

Defenders of public education speak before the Philadelphia School Board July 9, 2018

SB 7-9-18

Defenders of public education speak before the School Board July 9, 2018
Click the picture.

Transcripts of some of the speakers at the School Board meeting:

Supporters of Strawberry Mansion High School

Catherine Blunt’s testimony transcript

Sherri Brown’s testimony transcript

Supporters of Mayfair Elementary School

Maria Barowski’s testimony transcript

East Mt Airy Community Members

Beth Young’s testimony transcript

APPS and Community Members

Rich Migliore’s testimony transcript

Krisin Luebbert’s testimony transcript

Barbara Dowdall’s testimony transcript

Karel Kilimnik’s testimony transcript

Lisa Haver’s testimony transcript

Heather Marcus’s testimony transcript

Lynda Rubin’s testimony transcript

Deborah Grill’s testimony transcript

Tonya Bah’s testimony transcript

Robin Robert’s testimony transcript

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Defenders of public education speak before the Philadelphia City Council May 16, 2018

City Council May 16, 2018

Click the picture above to view video of testimony of defenders of public education before Philadelphia City Council on May 16, 2018.

Transcripts of the members of APPS who testified at the hearing
Transcripts are in the order of the testimony.

Karel Kilimnik City Council 5-16-18

Click the picture to read the transcript of Karel’s testimony.

Lisa Haver City Council 5-16-18

Click the picture to read the transcript of Lisa’s testimony.

Lynda Rubin City Council testimony 5-16-18

Click the picture to read the transcript of Lynda’s testimony.

 

Deborah Grill

Click the picture to read the transcript of Debbie’s testimony.

Barbara Dowdall City Council 5-16-18

Click the picture to read the transcript of Barbara’s testimony.

 

Who–and What–Does the New School Board Represent?

Kenney and Hite
Mayor Kenney enters the press conference with Superintendent Hite to announce the new Philadelphia School Board.

By Deb Grill, Karel Kilimnik and Lisa Haver
April 4, 2018

APPS biographies of the nine members of the new Philadelphia School Board.

Unlike the other 500, Philadelphia is the only school district in Pennsylvania whose voters cannot elect a school board. We’ve had town halls, online surveys, and pronouncements from city politicians, but it all comes down to this:  The government officials who will decide the future of the city’s public schools, and who will control a $3 billion budget, have been chosen by one person, Mayor Kenney.  His decision has been based, in part, on the opinions of the thirteen people selected by him to be on the Nominating Panel. It has also been based on the wishes of the influential individuals, organizations and corporations who have lobbied him to represent their interests on the board. Two built-in lobbyists on the Nominating Panel, Stephanie Naidoff and Bonnie Camarda, are members of the board of the Philadelphia School Partnership, which funnels millions every year from private investors into schools of their choice for the programs of their choice, mostly charters.

All of the deliberations of the Panel were held in secret. None of the district’s stakeholders, or the city’s taxpayers, were able to express their opinions about any of the candidates, whether pro or con, or to raise concerns about possible conflicts of interest. APPS did everything we could, short of legal action, to open up this process. We sent letters to the Mayor and to the Panel, refuting the Mayor’s false assertion that the Panel could deliberate in Executive Session because it was discussing “personnel matters”, pointing out that the Panel was neither hiring nor appointing any personnel. We had several community groups sign a letter asking the mayor to obey the Sunshine Act. 

APPS members  Karel Kilimnik and Rich Migliore wrote an op-ed published in the  Philadelphia Inquirer decrying the lack of democracy and the mayor’s attempt to have the charter change include language that would allow him to remove school board members without any due process, which would have killed the possibility of having a truly independent board.

Lisa Haver also wrote an op-ed questioning whether trading in one unelected, unaccountable school board for another, under the banner of local control, could be considered progress.

APPS also researched all forty-five Panel nominees. Now that the final selection has been made, we are re-posting the profiles of those selected with updated information.  One thing that stands out in the Mayor’s selection: there are no known advocates for public education. Since no one could question the nominees, we have no idea whether, or how much, they are committed to defending public education. We don’t know whether they believe that privatization and charterization are solutions to the problem of under-resourced neighborhood schools. We don’t know what their stance is on using anonymous private donations to fund public and charter schools.

Also see:
Is the new school board diverse enough? | Philadelphia Public School Notebook – April 19, 2018

Following are some of the patterns and connections that we have observed, so far, among the board members:

District and Charter School Connections

Click here to see a preliminary analysis of the
District and Charter School Connections of the new School Board.