Activism
Willard School proponents may finally have their site
Surveying school leaders: do schools have the basics?
State to calculate price tag for quality public schooling
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Willard School proponents may finally have their site
The city and School District are reportedly finalizing an agreement that will provide the District with a site for the long-awaited replacement for Willard Elementary School in Kensington.
Angry that this proposed project has been stalled since the 1990s, parents and community members organized through the Eastern Pennsylvania Organizing Project (EPOP) have been pressing for the new school to be built on a city-owned former recreation center site, which was also once a cemetery. The project had been held up for months by city-District negotiations, with the city wanting to charge the District for its land and the District facing the costly process of removing human remains from the abandoned cemetery.
Meanwhile, over 700 students housed at Willard face substandard conditions in a century-old building (plus two annexes and a trailer), with restrooms only in the basement and with no cafeteria, library, or gym.
EPOP leader Carmen Rivera, a parent of two recent Willard graduates who lives down the street from the school, said nothing has come easily in the struggle to get a new school built. She said the District and City Hall are both mistrusted in her neighborhood.
“They have been playing games with our community - and it’s because this is Kensington, a really low-income neighborhood,” Rivera said. “But this (new school) is something that all children deserve.”
“We are here, prepared to push them until it’s done,” she added.
Once the land is acquired, the District’s capital budget does include $39 million for construction of the new Willard over the next two years.
Surveying school leaders: do schools have the basics?
An advocacy group’s survey of principals at Philadelphia’s neighborhood high schools found diminishing concern about shortages of books and computers, but a wide range of problems in staffing, facilities, and school climate.
The Philadelphia Citizens for Children and Youth report “What Every High School Should Have” focuses on conditions at the city’s neighborhood high schools. “These are the schools in general that have not had the kind of attention that other schools have had,” explained Shelly Yanoff, PCCY’s executive director.
Yanoff said the group’s survey tried to determine whether these schools have “the absolute basics.”
Positive findings include that 85 percent of principals surveyed reported having enough textbooks in every subject for every student, and 86 percent have Internet access in nearly all classrooms. But PCCY highlighted several areas that need attention.
- Staffing: 45 percent of principals said they do not have enough substitutes to cover teacher absences, and nearly two-thirds had a classroom that lacked a permanent teacher.
- Buildings: 60 percent of principals called their heating systems “poor;” and 58 percent said drinking water was not available throughout the building.
- Libraries: 58 percent said their library is not “current or in good condition.”
The need for more behavioral health and social services “was probably spoken to more than anything else in the survey,” added PCCY Education Specialist Dennis Barnebey.
The four-page PCCY questionnaire is a tool for monitoring and advocating for improved school conditions. It is available at www.pccy.org/schools.htm or by calling PCCY at 215-563-5848.
State to calculate price tag for quality public schooling
Advocates for equitable school funding are applauding a decision by the Pennsylvania legislature to fund and conduct a statewide “costing-out study,” measuring the costs to school systems of providing all children with a quality public education.
“For too many years, the education budget in Pennsylvania has been based on political considerations and what we’re willing to spend in a given year,” commented Janis Risch of the education organizing group Good Schools Pennsylvania. She explained that the study’s goal “is to determine what does it actually cost to get students to the standards.” The state has standards by grade for what students should know and be able to do.
Good Schools PA teamed with the Education Law Center and the Education Policy and Leadership Center in pushing for the study as part of an ongoing campaign to reform the state’s preK-12 school finance system. Pennsylvania has regularly been rated as having one of the most unfair school finance systems in the country.
The costing-out study should be completed by the state Board of Education next year. Risch said her group is encouraging Pennsylvanians to “monitor the study, participate in it where possible, amplify it, and create the expectation that something will be done with it.” They can be reached at info@goodschoolspa.org or 215-332-2700.