A grass-roots organization of parents, community members, and school staff, fighting to defend public education. We work together to provide analysis and demand accountability from the School District of Philadelphia to provide students with a high-quality education.
Transparent Budget Process Needed; Reverse Speaker Procedure; Deny Item 4 KIPP Schools
by Karel Kilimnik
Equity in Resources–Certified Teacher Librarians
by Barbara McDowell Dowdall
Nuanced Compassion of Caring Adults
by Ilene Poses
Equitable Resources and a People’s Master Facilities Plan
by Akira Drake Rodriguez
by Molly McGlone
Will Budget Office Cherry-Pick Results to Fit Their Priorities?
by Daniel Scholnick
Do the Right Thing to Gain Back Community Trust
by Stephanie Fahringer
by Lynda Rubin
The Board of Education abolished its Parent and Community Engagement Committee one year after its inception, having held only two meetings. Last year, the Board eliminated two more, the Finance and Facilities Committee and the Student Achievement and Support Committee. Only the Policy Committee remains, meeting not monthly, but quarterly. The Board had established the four committees with the promise of more transparency and dialogue with parents, educators, students and community members about proposed action items and general issues of concern.
President Joyce Wilkerson and Maria McColgan co-chaired this meeting. Board members Reginald Streater, Mallory Fix Lopez, Cecelia Thompson, Angela McGiver, Julia Danzy, Leticia Egea-Hinton, and Lisa Salley attended, along with Student Representative Keylisha Diaz.
The agenda included proposed revisions of Policy 105, Curriculum Development; Policy 206, Assignment of students within the District; Policy 614, Payroll Authorization; Policy 616, Payments; and Policy 704, Maintenance. Policy 705, Workplace and Construction Project Safety, was amended. New policies are Policy 708, Environmental Management and Policy, and Policy 800, Records Management. The elimination of Policy 909, Municipal Government Relations, was also on the agenda. McColgan announced that the Board would not vote on these actions until after the third reading, this meeting being the first.
April 20, 2021
Dear President Wilkerson and Board Members of the Board,
We are writing in reference to Item 4 on the April 22 2021 Action Item agenda, the amendment request from KIPP charter schools. KIPP is requesting numerous changes, including name, location, grade and enrollment expansion, recruitment area expansion, and the official beginning and end dates for the 5-year term of “KIPP Parkside Charter School”. There are a number of inconsistencies in the Item’s description along with a number of issues that should be addressed before the Board considers this Item.
First, the District’s webpage lists no KIPP Parkside Charter School. There is a KIPP West Philadelphia and a KIPP West Philadelphia Preparatory. The address of the first is 5070 Parkside, so we assume that the Item refers to that school.
The District website lists KIPP West Philadelphia Charter as a K-3 schools. However, the 2017 SRC resolution linked in Item 4 states that this school would not include Grade 3 until the 2021-22 school year. When was KIPP granted an amendment for grade expansion after its initial approval?
The SRC resolution also indicates that “KIPP Parkside…shall not open until the 2019-20 school year.” Why would a school in its second year of operation need to move? KIPP’s operators told the SRC that the Parkside community needed a KIPP charter school. Item 4 gives no explanation of why KIPP’s operators changed their mind so quickly or whether they had actually intended to stay in that community.
by Karel Kilimnik
Despite being in an earth-shattering pandemic rocking the entire world, District leadership, with Board approval, continues to implement corporate practices into the administration of our School District. April brings more administrative requests for contracts instead of a commitment to rebuild its own infrastructure. Board Member Lisa Salley questioned this practice at last month’s action meeting. Teachers, principals, and other school staff are moved around like pieces on a chessboard instead of consulted for their knowledge and experience in working with students and families. The Board creates Advisory Committees and Councils to mask the Board’s actual quashing of the voices from school communities. The Board has refused to rescind its regressive speaker policies limiting both the number of speakers and restricting everyone to two minutes, down from three. Both student and adult speakers were barred from speaking in February and March. APPS and UrbEd, represented by the ACLU, has sued the Board in Common Pleas Court. We have sent letters to all City Councilmembers urging them to speak out and to direct the Board, over whom Council has some oversight, to end the silencing of the public. We have also created a petition urging the Board to rescind these speaker procedures.
The Board abolished three of its four committees, significantly lessening the public’s opportunity to be heard. The last time a report was presented by a member of the Parent and Community Advisory Council was almost six months ago. Earlier this month the Council hosted a “Conversation Session”, but the April 22 action meeting agenda has no item for any report from that session.
Trust in both the District and Board erodes further during the several botched attempts to open school buildings and the delays in posting a dashboard to track covid cases in buildings with students and staff present. The Hite administration failed to disclose to anyone–parents, students, educators–that only students returning to buildings would be taking standardized tests. Since only 30% of parents opted for hybrid learning, what is the rationale for administering PSSAs to only those students? Who does it benefit other than the powerful testing companies?
Alliance for Philadelphia Public Schools 