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Small schools backers push to be heard on capital plan
Student groups put forward an alternative vision for high schools to be built under the District's $1.5 billion construction program.
by Beandrea Davis
Two student groups and their allies are among those who see the District's $1.5 billion Capital Improvement Program as a landmark opportunity to transform Philadelphia's high schools.
The capital plan calls for building 20 new schools and renovating dozens more over the next five years, addressing a real need in a District where 71 percent of school buildings are more than 50 years old.
Students from Youth United for Change (YUC) and Philadelphia Student Union (PSU) are organizing not just to win better buildings but also to create smaller schools, which they say are more engaging learning environments than the large, impersonal high schools they currently attend.
The students' focus on small schools is supported by data from surveys they have conducted of hundreds of students about what would improve their education. Both groups have visited several successful small high schools across the country (see Student groups formulate vision of small schools ).
"What I found out when I went into these [small high] schools was a lot of students wanted to go to class, which is kind of rare when you look at Philadelphia schools," said PSU member Robert Cunningham, a West Philadelphia High senior.
YUC members from Kensington and Olney High and PSU members from West Philadelphia High - whose schools are scheduled to receive new buildings - have been working to gather support for their plans to restructure their large high schools into clusters of small schools.
The students' restructuring plans call for the creation of high school campuses made up of four small schools, each with their own principal and budget. The campus would have schools serving grades 9-12 with 400 students each, and they would share some common facilities such as the gymnasium, cafeteria, and library. Students are excited about the possibilities.
"Although I'm not going to be here when the new school gets built, I just think about what if my little sister or my little cousin ends up going there," said YUC member Jennifer Howell, an eleventh grader at Kensington High School. "I would want them to have a better education than what I went through."
This student-led effort to transform West, Kensington, and Olney has galvanized a variety of constituencies citywide, said Fran Sugarman, coordinator of the Philadelphia chapter of the Cross City Campaign, a network of local education groups.
"There's a much stronger, broadened constituency around the concept of small schools that's already having a significant impact across the city," she said.
On the radar screen
Though the students' plans are on the District's radar screen, school officials have stopped short of declaring their support for the students' vision.
"We've seen the student proposals, and they'll be considered, but there will be broader community input too," said District CEO Paul Vallas.
The District is committed to decreasing the size of its neighborhood high schools by creating small high schools (see District pursues creation of new, smaller high schools) and limiting its new high school construction to buildings for a maximum of 1,000 students.
Creg Williams, deputy chief academic officer in charge of high schools, said he isn't convinced that 400 is the optimal enrollment for a small high school.
At "400 you can do some decent programming, but you don't maximize building space [or] teacher allocation," he said, maintaining that a size of about 600 students is also usually more efficient in terms of construction costs.
New building, new education
Key to YUC's and PSU's ability to promote their small schools vision is finding the appropriate channels for having input into not only the design of the buildings but the educational programs that will go on inside them.
"We don't just want a shiny new building and the same old, poor-quality education," said PSU Executive Director Eric Braxton.
Chris Harris, the District's director for capital projects, described an extensive process for community input into the design of new schools (see Capital plan community outreach) but said decisions about the educational programs of the new schools are outside the scope of that community process.
"We don't voice opinions on the academic program. All we do is design the building that supports whatever decisions have been made," she said.
Academic decisions regarding high schools are in the hands of Creg Williams. But supporters of small schools say they are unclear about how student and community organizations can help define the educational vision of the new schools if educational and design issues are kept separate.
Braxton said he would like to see more efforts made to clarify this process. "We're concerned that the public engagement process around the capital plan doesn't really allow authentic community participation," said Braxton.
"The community really wants to be involved in the process," he stated. "It's unclear how that's going to work."
In search of avenues for real input
A process that is open to a wide array of viewpoints is key to building schools that are centers of communities, says architect Steven Bingler, president of the firm Concordia Inc., which specializes in facilitating community engagement in school planning and construction.
"The important thing is [that] the process is structured so that people's input is genuinely considered," he said, emphasizing that community input is not the same thing as community engagement. "You're not just asking them to approve some decision that has already been made."
The School District's community outreach process, focused just on design issues, begins with a small, representative group at the school level called a School Planning Team. The school's principal selects the team.
"This is our community, and the community [should have] a say on the design team," argued YUC member and Kensington High tenth grader Kenneth Ramos.
But both YUC and PSU say they are not sure whether or not they will get a seat at the table when it is time to begin the design phase of their schools' projects.
An outside consulting firm, Lana Felton-Ghee Associates, has a 3-year, $715,000 contract to insure adequate community input on the capital plans. Mayor Street's former campaign manager, Lana Felton-Ghee is lead community outreach consultant. Her contract is with the URS Corporation, the project management firm guiding the District's capital program.
Asked if members of the student groups would be invited to join the school planning teams at their high schools, Felton-Ghee said: "I don't know. But will they be heard? Absolutely, yes."
The School Planning Teams are responsible for developing the "final scope of work" for each project. Then three broader community meetings, where the architect presents the scope and then updates the community during the design process, are places where community groups can express their views.
"Nothing is carved in stone until after those large-scale community meetings," said District spokeswoman Cecelia Cummings, who urged community groups not to judge the process prematurely.
But, as Felton-Ghee noted, any suggestions made during these town meetings will have "to work within the framework" already established by the School Planning Team.
"The schedule will not allow for major revision of the design," agreed Dan Schrader of L. Robert Kimball Associates, the architecture firm designing the new building for Fels High School.
Review of the minutes
A Notebook review of minutes of several sets of School Planning Team meetings raised additional concerns about the planning process at some of the schools that are now in the design phase.
Meeting minutes recorded by the District's community outreach staff show that at one school, Longstreth, no parent or community representatives signed off on the final scope of work. Other teams were smaller than the suggested size of seven to nine representatives. Minutes indicate that District staff consistently expressed the need to secure the School Planning Team's "sign-off" on a scope of work by the second team meeting.
But Harris noted that most schools in the first round of projects did have at least three team meetings and said that, except for Longstreth, schools had teams that represented the key constituencies.
"We have engaged in a proactive approach," Harris said. "Our principals and community members have been very happy."
Fels High principal Jeffrey Petty agreed: "What's been fabulous about it is that I have had huge input into the way the new building is going to look," he said.
For child advocate Shelly Yanoff, executive director of Philadelphia Citizens for Children and Youth, students should be at the center of efforts to seize upon this opportunity to transform high schools.
"Their voices should be the dominant ones," she said.
Steven Bingler's report "Schools as Centers of Community: a Citizens' Guide for Planning and Design," is at www.concordia.com/files/schoolsascenters.pdf.