by Karel Kilimnik
“I’m no longer accepting the things I cannot change… I’m changing the things I cannot accept.” Professor and Activist Angela Davis
Continuing its campaign of self-congratulation, the Board of Education has solicited and posted glowing blurbs for its new “Goals and Guardrails” (Item 1). They include the CEO of the Philadelphia Chamber of Commerce, President of the Philadelphia Industrial Development Corporation (PIDC), a former SRC commissioner, and one member of the Board’s Parent and Community Council. Mayor Kenney, who through a secret process appointed all of the Board members, also cheers them on. Conspicuous by their absence are endorsements from individual parents, teachers or students, or from grass-roots advocacy organizations. The blurbs make clear for whom the Goals and Guardrails were written. The Board, instead of turning away from the corporate disruption of the public school system, furthers it through outsourcing, exorbitant contracts to outside companies, and looking the other way when charter schools fail to meet standards. Board members did nothing other than express faint disapproval after the release of the Inspector General’s damning report on Superintendent Hite’s botching of the Ben Franklin/SLA construction project.
The Board has found more ways to curtail public participation. One of the Board’s first–and highly publicized–actions in 2018 was the establishment of a committee structure designed to provide time and space for public dialogue and in-depth discussion. But after only two meetings, the Board eliminated its District Partnerships and Community Engagement Committee. Last month, after no public deliberation, they announced the elimination of both the Student Achievement and the Support and Finance and Facilities committees. Action Item 2 hammers the final nail in. This month, while looking for other information on the District website, we found that the Board had cut public speakers’ time from three minutes to two and put a 30-person limit on public speakers. When we asked District staff when the Board voted on these changes, we were told that they didn’t have to. Last year, the Board voted to eliminate the official Speakers’ Policy. Months later, they replaced it with a pared down policy. These changes, it turns out, are procedures that were added later to the posted policy, and the Board claims that it is not required to take a public vote on the procedures. Does that mean they can’t? Would this be an example of the transparency we heard Board members touting at City Council last week? The Board, at this Action Meeting, should explain why they are limiting public speech at a public meeting and why they place most speakers at the end of the agenda. As parent activist Stephanie King told Councilmembers: “If the Board does not want to hear from the public , they should resign.”
Limiting Board meetings to two hours, as proposed under G & G “Communication and Collaboration”, replaces community voices with their own, particularly if they also follow this guideline: “The Board invests no less than 25% of its total Board-authorized public meeting minutes monitoring its goals and interim goals.” Thus the Board would be taking up about ¼ of the meeting time for its own presentations. Did a return to public control mean giving the public fewer opportunities to be heard than when the District was under state control?
The Board’s decision to evaluate itself represents a deep misunderstanding of its role as a governing body. Government officials, whether elected or appointed, are evaluated by the people. Parents can say whether their children are being provided a quality education; teachers can tell them whether they have the resources they need; students can talk about their schools and their classrooms. The Board should be listening to them, not creating an echo chamber to amplify their own voices.
A similar trend continues as the Board releases only scant information about some Items. Last month, after several community members raised questions about equity, the Board voted to postpone action on an Item authorizing an expensive contract for playground improvements at the Lowell School. The matter returns this month with a more extensive description in Item 21, but it does not address the equity issue. Playground Improvement Item 20 gives a similar description for another playground contract at AMY Northwest Middle School.
Tech vendors profit from the pandemic as they market their products (Item 16). Instead of hiring more counselors, social workers, and school psychologists, the District turns to the virtual world for assessing and controlling student behavior. Omitting details from their Item Description remains an unresolved issue (Item3).
What if…
… the Board went beyond rhetoric and recognized, at every Action Meeting, the essential work that principals, teachers, and other school staff are doing? The Board could use the suggestions submitted by members of the public on the District’s “Good News” page.
February Board of Education Action Meeting: Thursday, February 25, 5 PM. Check the Board website for updated information on how to sign up to testify.
Action Items of Note
Find the full List of Action Items here
Board Members Replace Community Voices with Their Own
Action Item 1: Five Year Goals and Guardrails – Self Evaluation Template
The Board of Education adopted its Goals and Guardrails, in the form attached, as its five-year strategic vision for The School District of Philadelphia on December 10, 2020. In order to monitor this work, the Board will complete and publish a self-evaluation, in the form attached, at least twice per year in June and December.
As the governing body of the School District of Philadelphia, the Board of Education’s role is to set a vision for public education in Philadelphia and then to hold the School District accountable for realizing it. As a Board, we have spent the last two years visiting schools and meeting with community members to learn about how best to carry out this critical work.
Our vision for public education is simple. We believe in a school system that provides every student with the tools and experiences they need to reach their fullest potential.
In order to achieve this vision, we have set clear student learning goals for the District and guardrails that will protect the conditions needed to make student learning a priority.
APPS Analysis: Were the Goals & Guardrails written to deliberately confuse people? Who is their intended audience? Why the inaccessible corporate and educational jargon? Their colorful rubric fails to address governance issues. Where are the resources to support their Goals? At every Board meeting, parents, students, and school staff relay problems and offer suggestions to resolve them but receive little feedback. The Board’s three stated goals are:
- All children are capable of reaching their fullest potential, and they deserve a safe and nurturing school community where they are valued, respected and encouraged.
- Our vision is to ensure that all students are given an education that allows them to thrive, succeed and lead in a global society.
- We are committed to making the changes needed to provide our students, educators and leaders with the tools to make this vision real.
APPS asks these questions:
- If the primary Reading Goal is “Every student reads on or above grade level”, when will the Board restore Certified School Librarians to every school?
- Why does the Board continue to approve contracts to corporations and edu-vendors?
- Why does the Board continue to fund unaccredited programs like Relay GSE and Urban Teachers?
- When will the Board insist the District hire more counselors, nurses, classroom assistants, and other support staff?
- When will the Board take concrete steps to ensure the equitable distribution of resources to District schools?
Action Item 2: Adoption of Proposed Board Policy
The Board will consider the amendment of the following policy, in the form attached, at the January Board Meeting: 004.1 School Board Committees
APPS Analysis: The termination of the Student Achievement & Support and Finance & Facilities Committees becomes official with the passage of this Item. The Item states that the Board “may establish committees (standing or ad hoc) through a majority vote of the Board to assist in its governance of the School District and its charter authorizing business” and that “the Board may authorize the creation of ad hoc committees to meet on an as needed basis to complete specific Board business and keep the Board informed of community opinion and provide representation of stakeholders on specific issues.” The Board limits public participation while opening a door for possible new committees to deal with what? No examples or even parameters are provided of what might generate the necessity for convening a committee. Was attending those three abolished committees simply too much work and time for the nine Board members?
Action Item 3: Amendment of 2021 Board of Education Public Meeting Schedule
The Board of Education hereby amends its public business meeting schedule for the 2021 calendar year, adopted December 10, 2020, to reflect the following additions and changes:
March 18, 2021 (Public Hearing)
May 20, 2021 (Public Hearing)
July 15, 2021 (Action Meeting)
September 23, 2021 (Action Meeting – changed from September 16, 2021)
October 28, 2021 (Action Meeting – changed from October 21, 2021)
APPS Analysis: As the Board extols its own transparency, it changes official meeting dates with no explanation of why the changes are being made or what the added meetings will be about. Where is the description for these two Public Hearings?
Edu- Vendors Profit
Action Item 16: Contracts with Motivating Systems, LLC, dba PBIS Rewards and Kickboard, Inc. ($300,000)
Purpose: Digital Plat End date: 2/1/2024
Description: Since schools are exceedingly looking to modernize the ways in which they reinforce prosocial positive student behavior, there has been a movement toward finding virtual platforms to do so. As schools increasingly look to move away from paper-based ticket/dollar systems, they are looking to vendors to provide platforms for students to earn points, exchange those points for items, activities, access to events, and other exciting opportunities that build relationships and community. The vendors allow schools to purchase one of the platforms out of their budgets, help build strong and supportive school environments, and directly serve to meet the needs of students. Finally, the platforms also allow school leaders and their teams to have data at their fingertips to provide positive reinforcement to students and staff regularly for positive behavior and practicing the evidence-based practice of using behavior specific praise. The systems to be provided under this contract will be made available to all District schools but payment for these services/systems will come out of each individual school’s budget.
APPS Analysis: The visually unappealing Motivating Systems, LLC website offers an astonishing lack of relevant information. Their staff bios tell us how many pets one employee owns, including a blind fish; one who can find the best chicken-fried steak; several who like to drink coffee; and one who rides 4,000 miles on his bike annually. Their website proudly announces: “We Help Organizations MOTIVATE PEOPLE”. Their experience lies in PBIS (Positive Behavioral Interventions and Supports), a Pavlovian behavior modification simply tying behavior to performance and then rewarding that achievement. The method does not address self-knowledge and understanding or empathy and social consciousness. This contract offers the corporate model of behavior modification that offers rewards for performing, not understanding. This carrot/stick model simply replicates existing inequitable, racist, and classist systems. Thinking and analyzing is not part of their program. As one Philadelphia teacher we consulted pointed out, “If one really needs to keep track of PBIS points and rewards, a simple Google Spreadsheet will do.” Both Motivating Systems and Kickboard rely upon layers of testing and repeated data collection to drive their programs. Teachers are reduced to cogs in their systems. In their world human behavior is something to be controlled. Is this what our students need?
The Item Description reads as if it were translated from a foreign language: “Since schools are exceedingly looking to modernize the ways in which they reinforce prosocial positive student behavior…”. Our students are living through intense trauma. Behavior modification is not what they need to heal from events of the past year. They need skilled people with training, experience,and compassion to help them heal and grow.
Equity Remains Unresolved in Playground Upgrades
Action Item 20: AMY Northwest Middle Schoolyard Improvement Project-The Trust for Public Land ($250,000)
Description: Over two-thirds of District elementary schools do not have vibrant outdoor spaces with greening and age-appropriate equipment and safety surfacing. By partnering with The Trust for Public Land (TPL), The District will be able to install new playground improvements that include the installation of new concrete work including paving, installation of new playground equipment, installation of artificial turf field surfacing, installation of poured-in-place safety surfacing, basketball standard installation, and high quality site furniture. The District expects that through the implementation of this project, students will have increased opportunities for high quality play and learning environments within the schoolyard.
The District intends to enter into a License Agreement with The Trust for Public Land (TPL) so that TPL can make certain playground improvements at AMY Northwest Middle School. TPL will work with PlayCore Wisconsin, Inc., to perform this work. Once the playground improvements have been completed, the School District will purchase the playground improvements from TPL under the terms of a Purchase of Assets Agreement.
AMY Northwest Middle School was selected for this project using the following criteria:
- The school is located in an area of the city with low density of public play or green space;
- The size of the yard can support play equipment and other exterior elements;
- The schoolyard has good visibility from the surrounding neighborhood;
- The school is located in the combined sewer area which makes it eligible for stormwater management; and
- The school leadership expressed a willingness to engage students and staff and to maintain the improvements.
Action Item 21: Lowell Elementary School Schoolyard Improvement Project – The Trust for Public Land ($250,000)
Description: Over two-thirds of District elementary schools do not have vibrant outdoor spaces with greening and age appropriate equipment and safety surfacing. By partnering with The Trust for Public Land (TPL), The District will be able to install new playground improvements that include the installation of new concrete paving and site furnishing pads, asphalt sawcutting, demolition and removal, installation of new playground equipment, installation of an artificial turf field surface, installation of a poured-in-place rubber playground safety surface, basketball standard installation, and site furniture. The District expects that through the implementation of this project, students will have increased opportunities for high quality play and learning environments within the schoolyard.
The District intends to enter into a License Agreement with TPL so that TPL can make certain playground improvements at the Lowell Elementary School. TPL will work with PlayCore Wisconsin, Inc., to perform this work. Once the playground improvements have been completed, the School District will purchase the playground improvements from TPL under the terms of a Purchase of Assets Agreement.
Lowell Elementary School was selected for this project using the following criteria:
- The school is located in an area of the city with low density of public play or greenspace;
- The size of the yard can support play equipment and other exterior elements;
- The schoolyard has good visibility from the surrounding neighborhood;
- The school is located in the combined sewer area which makes it eligible for stormwater management; and
- The school leadership expressed a willingness to engage students and staff and to maintain the improvements.
APPS Analysis: Last month the Lowell Schoolyard Improvement appeared on the Agenda. After Board members Mallory Fix Lopez and and Angela McGiver addressed public concerns about spending $500,000 on upgrading existing playgrounds without considering the needs of schools without any play area, the Item was tabled. This month’s agenda includes the Lowell contract along with a similar contract for upgrades at AMY Northwest. The Descriptions offers more details, but nowhere is the equity issue resolved. One public speaker asked in December whether the District has a list of the existence and condition of every elementary school’s play area. The Board has not posted any such information on the website or in any attachment to the agenda. Every school needs a playground for their students. Not every school community has the capacity to solicit grants or raise matching funds. The District needs to address this inequity now and provide answers to the public.
Alliance for Philadelphia Public Schools 