Back to School

Philadelphia schools, broadly defined, opened today. The School District of Philadelphia told parents to “plan ahead for back to school.”

If the School District had planned ahead last year, perhaps 12-year-old Laporshia Massey would be alive. A sixth grade student at Bryant Elementary, Laporshia died three weeks into the school year after suffering an asthma attack at her school where there was no nurse on the premises.

More than 30 percent of children between the ages of 5 to 12 in West Philly have been diagnosed with asthma. So it was reasonable to expect a child would suffer an asthma attack or otherwise get sick while at school. Yet there was no plan to deal with medical emergencies.

Laporshia’s family is suing the school district. So they may get justice for Laporshia.

But today, tens of thousands are children are in buildings with no school nurse on duty. Where is the plan to prevent another child from dying?

Death of a School System

Two weeks from today, the Philadelphia School District will open the doors to buildings that are schools in name only. Traditional public schools increasingly are joyless places where children are warehoused and opportunities for learning are elusive.

Superintendent William R. Hite recently announced that schools will open on time with another $31 million in cuts:

Today, just three weeks from school opening, we once again find ourselves having to make unbelievably tough choices. As we announced more than a month ago, we have an $81 million shortfall in our current year budget, which must be closed through additional revenues or cost reductions.

For the sake of minimizing disruptions for families and for the sake of educating children, we have made the decision to make a series of additional difficult – and, hopefully, temporary – cuts in order to open schools on time.

The “temporary” cuts include:

• Fewer school police officers
• Less frequent cleaning of schools
• Fewer cleaning supplies
• Delayed repairs at schools

Hite said he hoped to “realize significant revenues from additional building sales.”

On Friday, the William Penn Development Coalition withdrew its legal action that had effectively blocked the sale of William Penn High School to Temple University. William Penn was temporarily closed in 2009. (Full disclosure: I am a member of the WPDC Executive Board.)

The decision to withdraw its lis pendens was in recognition that WPDC had exhausted that legal remedy. WPDC President Inez Henderson-Purnell said in a statement:

We fought the good fight. With this action, the sale of William Penn to Temple University will go forward. But the fight to save William Penn is broader than one school. William Penn has become a metaphor in the struggle to ensure our children have access to high quality traditional public schools.

Sadly, we are witnessing death by a thousand cuts.

In the late ‘90s, my mentor, Milton Bins, took me on a site visit to William Penn. Now deceased, Milton was a longtime advocate for public education with the Council of the Great City Schools.

Back in the day, William Penn was a highly successful school. Its death is an object lesson on what happens when a school is systematically and deliberately stripped of resources. The building becomes a shadow of its former glory. WPDC Treasurer Priscilla Woods observed:

William Penn is a cautionary tale about what happens when a school is deprived of resources. The School District of Philadelphia’s divestment led to the death of the 1st Governor’s School of Excellence at William Penn, which was the best equipped educational facility of its day with five academic academies.

We now see this happening districtwide. In September, schools will open with even fewer resources than “the inadequate and insufficient resources schools had last year.”

Woods’ concerns were underscored by state Sen. Vincent Hughes who last week released a report on conditions in Philadelphia public schools. In a statement, Hughes said:

While I am grateful that students and parents will not have to deal with the disruption of our public schools opening late, I am deeply concerned that the continued lack of adequate funding will further erode conditions in our classrooms. The cuts that were announced today, as well as the ongoing insecurity given the lack of additional funds from Harrisburg, are simply unacceptable. The lack of commitment to our public schools in Philadelphia and across the Commonwealth has become a national embarrassment.

We already know that current funding levels are not enough to create an environment to prepare our students for the challenges of the 21st Century. Conditions in our public schools were deplorable last year and now the system is gearing up for a repeat at best, with likely even less funding and more cuts to vital programs. We cannot expect our children to shine academically while providing them with such woefully inadequate resources.

Had enough? If you care about our children, bear witness to what’s happening in your school. Let your voices be heard.

IMAGE – Philly Speaks

For more info about the town hall meeting, go here.

Press Release: Schools will open but are they schools?

Press Release: Schools will open but are they schools?.

Sabotaging our children and our schools

Sabotaging our children and our schools.

Parents United urges SRC not to take action on “devastating” budget options

Parents United urges SRC not to take action on “devastating” budget options.

It’s Always Shady in Philadelphia

It’s Always Shady in Philadelphia.

Philly School Daze

Philly School Daze.

Philly’s School Budget Cuts

In a recent “Dispatch from Philadelphia,” Colorlines’ Julianne Hing wrote:

“Budget crisis” is too tame a phrase to describe what’s happening in Philadelphia right now. The cuts hit bone. Nurses, counselors, teachers, lunchroom aides, assistant principals and librarians were eliminated. On Sept. 25, a sixth-grader named Laporshia Massey passed away after she suffered an asthma attack at school. Massey’s school didn’t have a nurse, and her family argued one could have saved their daughter’s life. In fact, during the budget crisis, school nurses warned that cuts to nursing staff would hurt student academic performance and endanger student safety. Three weeks after Massey’s death, amidst public outcry, Gov. Corbett released $45 million in state money to rehire some teachers, counselors and other support staff. Corbett had been withholding the money on the demand that the teachers union hand over further concessions in their contract standoff. When he released the funds, Corbett’s administration made sure to mention that he wasn’t doing it because of Massey.

The budget crisis in Philadelphia, in cutting as deep as it has, highlights the fact that schools are so much more than buildings that house desks and kids, and that education is much more than classroom learning and testing. Schools are lifelines in communities, often functioning as the hub in a neighborhood. Nurses, counselors, assistant principals, music teachers and librarians play crucial roles in sustaining those communities and keeping children afloat. Take counselors, for instance, who do so much more than settle class schedules and lay out college brochures. At the start of November, 80 counselors laid off in the midst of the crisis were returned to Philadelphia schools so that every high school will have at least one counselor, the Philadelphia Inquirer reported. But the damage was done for many students. Not having counselors around for nearly two months at the beginning of the school year left them without guides through the testing and college application maze. Some schools even declined to offer PSATs, which prep students for the SATs, because they didn’t have counselors to coordinate the tests.

Students are acutely aware that Corbett is investing in incarceration rather than education.

Jamarr Hall, a 2010 graduate of Murrell Dobbins CTE High School and member of Philly Youth Poetry Movement, speaks the truth about Philly’s budget cuts.

Penn. Department of Education Responds to School Nurse Shortage Complaint

On Oct. 22, 2013, the Public Interest Law Center of Philadelphia filed a group complaint with the Pennsylvania Department of Education regarding the School District of Philadelphia’s failure to provide nursing services to students. The complaint was filed on behalf of Parents United for Public Education.

On its website, PILCOP wrote:

In the letter, the state indicates that it will investigate the lack of nurses specifically related to students with disabilities by reviewing current staffing plans and conducting onsite visits. The Department of Education further states that it is not responsible for investigating this complaint related to non-disabled students and places that responsibility with the Office of Student Services. The state is also referring the matter to the Department of Health. The letter does not indicate if the department has any plans to meet with parents or advocates during its investigation.

You can read the letter here.

Parents United for Public Education File Group Complaint Regarding Lack of School Nurses