Activism
Antiviolence efforts taken to school, Council
Activism around the city
Antiviolence efforts taken to school, Council
From a City Council meeting on coordinating public safety responses to some 1,000 men joined in prayer around Germantown High School, new community-based antiviolence efforts targeting youth have been visible in Philadelphia lately.
"It turned out even beyond what I had thought," Rev. LeRoi Simmons, an associate minister at Canaan Baptist Church, said of the "1,000 Male Presence" he helped organize along with other congregations outside recently trouble-plagued Germantown High on November 16. Simmons says ongoing activities will include a Safe Corridors program.
Men marched from Vernon Park, at Germantown Avenue and Greene Street, to form a circle around nearby Germantown High School. They then moved to the front of the school for prayers by local clergy members and comments from School District officials. Participants hailed from 11 local churches and elsewhere.
Such alliances are also an aim of the Eastern Pennsylvania Organizing Project (EPOP), which is planning an "Emergency Safety Summit" and has sought a public hearing on establishing a systemwide approach to countering incidents of violence against children and youth, particularly en route to and from school.
During a City Council subcommittee meeting in early November, Philadelphia school CEO Paul Vallas, Philadelphia Police Commissioner Sylvester Johnson, community leaders, EPOP organizers, and others expressed their support for a resolution allowing Council's Legislative Oversight and Public Safety committees to hold the public hearing.
The EPOP-led, multi-group campaign wants a summit to take aim at issues from unsafe school zones to gun violence to the cloak of fear induced by student-on-student attacks.
"The Philadelphia Police Department has had meetings with community members and with principals from schools toward having this meeting where we can get issues on the table and have some comprehensive solutions," EPOP organizer Justin DiBerardinis said of plans for the summit, which EPOP hopes will take place as early as January.
For information, contact EPOP at 215-634-8922.
Enrollment guaranteed to immigrant, foster youth
Public schools are required to provide speedy enrollment to immigrant and foster children, according to a new state regulation, the result of a prolonged campaign by the Education Law Center (ELC).
The rules, which took effect in October 2004, explicitly grant equal enrollment rights to children living in foster homes and prohibit schools from inquiring about a child's immigration status during the admission process.
"Children separated from their parents are especially needy and transient, and these enrollment delays can have a lasting effect on their education," explains Janet Stotland, co-director of the ELC. The organization's 2002 report revealed that foster children often faced barriers to enrollment and lacked adequate educational opportunities.
The right of all children to enroll in public school was affirmed by the United States Supreme Court over two decades ago. Nonetheless, some immigrant parents reported difficulties enrolling their children, according to the Education Law Center.
Len Rieser, co-executive director of the ELC, expressed confidence that the new regulation erases any ambiguities. "Pennsylvania is making it clear to all its schools that they are not in the immigration enforcement business - they're in the business of educating children," he said.
Public schools must now enroll a student within five business days of the parent's or guardian's application. Immigration status cannot be considered, and foster children living in the district cannot be denied admission.
For information, contact the Education Law Center at 215-238-6970.
Students take part in high-turnout election
In an election that reached a 30-year high point in voter turnout, young voters showed that they could crank up the heat as well.
The turnout rate for voters aged 18 to 24 rose by nearly 6 percentage points, reflecting 1.8 million more people in that age group than voted in the 2000 presidential election, according to the Center for Information & Research on Civic Learning & Engagement, which promotes research on the civic and political engagement of young Americans.
The numbers were called indisputable by Phyllis Kaniss, national director of the Student Voices Project, in the wake of a widely published wire report that stated young voter turnout was down.
Student Voices, an initiative of the Annenberg Public Policy Center at the University of Pennsylvania, joined with several local organizations to encourage 18-year-olds to register and vote. The specific participation by voting-eligible high school students could not be determined. But as a program that has been integrated into the social studies curriculum in 51 Philadelphia high schools this year, Student Voices seeks to have a long-term impact on civic participation.
"As important as it is to register and vote, we place equal emphasis on voter education," Kaniss said. "So students who went through Student Voices in Philadelphia this fall really got to know where their candidate stood on issues that were important to them."