So in case you hadn’t noticed there is a food truck – sorry, “mobile food” – revolution happening around the country. Mobile food has become serious business. If you ever thought about starting a mobile food business you need to get to a free day-long workshop at Penn Law School in a couple of weeks.

The Mobile Entrepreneur Workshop will feature guidance on financing a business, copyright and trademarks, regulation and licensing and managing risk and growth. Penn Law’s Entrepreneurship Legal Clinic and the Philadelphia Mobile Food Association are sponsoring the workshop, which will be held from 8:30 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. on Feb. 16. Even lunch is free. But there is limited space and an RSVP is required.

For more information and the full schedule, visit the workshop’s Facebook page here or call 215-898-8044.

Philadelphia has more homicides per capita than any big city in the country. Guns are used in most of those murders. More than 100 people were shot in December in the city. A “conversation and exploration” will be held beginning at 1 p.m. this Sunday, Feb. 3, at The Calvary Center (48th and Baltimore) aimed at figuring out ways to curb gun violence.

Speakers at “Addressing Gun Violence in Philadelphia: A Conversation & Exploration” include Erica Atwood, a community engagement specialist with the Mayor’s office, and Daniel O’Brien, the assistant managing director of Philly Rising.

Free childcare will be available at The Calvary Center from 1-2:30 p.m. Write wpmf  -at- wpmf.org to sign up for child care.

Kol Tzedek Synagogue, West Philadelphia Mennonite Fellowship and Calvary United Methodist Church are sponsoring the event.

As police search for two suspects involved in the abduction of a 5-year-old girl from a West Philly elementary school earlier this month, the reward for information leading to their arrest and conviction has reached $80,000, according to the Special Victims Unit.

The girl was abducted from the Bryant Elementary school at 60th and Cedar on the morning of January 14 by a woman dressed in dark colored Muslim clothing and taken to a house in the area where she was joined by a man. The girl was held in the house overnight and found by a passerby early the next morning hiding under a slide in a playground at 69th St and Marshall Road in Upper Darby.

Police are also looking for a third “person of interest” described as a 14- to 17-year-old black female who may go by the
name of “China/Chyna”, thin build, light skinned, with long straight black hair. She was last seen wearing a hoody and tights.

Anyone with information about this case are asked to contact the Philadelphia Police Department by calling 215-686-TIPS (8477), the Special Victims Unit at 215-685-3251, or 911. You can also email to: tips@phillypolice.com.

– Mike Lyons

Great news for café lovers. The space on the 4300 block of Locust Street that used to house Café Clave will soon be reborn. Its new name, fittingly, is Café Renata (“reborn” in Latin).

The café will begin a soft opening next week and have an opening celebration on Friday (more on that next week). Co-owners Kate Steenstra and Yasser Aiq, both West Philly residents, will run the show. Café Renata will serve a wide selection of coffee along with a wide selection of food, including Mediterranean, South American and American fare with “a little more emphasis on breakfast,” said Aiq. Another welcome addition will be a rotating selection of soups. Down the road Steenstra and Aiq hope to add brunch.

Stay tuned for more from Café Renata.

Yasser Aiq and Kate Steenstra.

Editor’s Note: Reporters were barred from this meeting so that parents could feel free to speak their minds without fear that their names would be used. As a parent, I was able to attend the meeting, but honor that principle. No names – other than Superintendent William Hite – are used in the story. In another note, everyone has had a chance to vent about the line and those who participated in it. I, like many of you, know many people who were in the line and they are good, hard-working people who want their kids to go to the best school possible. So as of now, any comments that are of a personal nature or do not further the search for a solution will be deleted.

Superintendent William Hite speaks to parents at the Penn Alexander School on Tuesday.

Superintendent William Hite told a group of about 125 parents on Tuesday that the School District of Philadelphia would explore several options to address the kindergarten registration crisis at the Penn Alexander School. But he offered no immediate solution and did not take the proposed lottery off the table.

The options, he said, could include a lottery, but that the best long-term solution is to find out whether it’s “possible to serve every student in the catchment area,” a statement that drew applause from many parents present.

Hite seemed willing to rescind the lottery announced Friday if an equitable solution could be found.

He announced in a letter to parents on Friday that Penn Alexander would switch from a first-come, first-served process to a lottery to be held sometime in April. That announcement angered many parents who began standing in line to register Friday morning, four days before registration.

“Quite frankly I saw a process that from my perspective was not equitable,” said Hite, who told parents that he was only alerted to what might happen at the school during a meeting on Thursday evening.

Hite told parents that, while he understood that the line has become a protocol for registering at Penn Alexander, that it is unofficial.

“From my perspective the process begins when registration begins,” he said. “(That) is not the official start of the process to register.”

Several parents from Friday’s line requested that the district honor the list that circulated through the line indicating when each person began to line up.

“We got in that line because the school district steadfastly stood behind the first-come, first-served policy,” said one parent. “The line is the de facto school policy.”

That parent like many others who testified said they felt a mix of embarrassment, shame and chagrin to be forced to stand in the line, but that added that district was being disingenuous to change the policy with such late notice.

“I stood in that line not because I thought it was right, but because I thought it was what I had to do for my child,” one single mom said.

But another single mom testified that she couldn’t get off work to be in the line. Still another parent said that she refused to stand in the line.

One alternative to the lottery that gained traction during the meeting was to roll back kindergarten enrollment caps at the school, which are currently set at 18. One parent suggested raising them to 25 as a way to accommodate most, if not all, the students who want to register.

That solution raises questions about how those children will be accommodated in subsequent grades, where enrollment has also been capped. Caps in other grades is what has made kindergarten admission so coveted. Once a student gets into kindergarten, he or she is guaranteed a spot in the other grades.

One parent of a child who attends Penn Alexander middle school grades asked that those grades not be targeted in the quest for more space. The middle school grades, which have smaller classes than lower grades because students often leave in fifth grade for magnet schools, have been eyed before as a way to create additional classroom space.

“I beg you not to remove the middle school as you consider these plans,” she said.

It became clear during the meeting that more data should be collected and released that details the number of prospective kindergartners who live the catchment.

“We believe that decision are being made with the absence of data,” said one parent.

Here are some more outcomes of the meeting:

• The district asked for members of the community to volunteer to be on an advisory committee that would be part of the decisionmaking process. Several people lined up after the meeting to sign up.

• A meeting between district officials and that advisory committee will likely take place in the next week.

• No decision was made today to rescind the lottery.

• Some parents requested that Alexander Wilson School, which could be an alternative for those who are not admitted to Penn Alexander, not be closed.

• A call for more transparency between parents, the community, school officials and the school district.

A public meeting to discuss kindergarten registration at the Penn Alexander School will be held tomorrow (Tuesday, Jan. 22) beginning at 11 a.m. in the school’s gym. In e-mail exchanges with parents who lined up Friday for registration, district spokesman Fernando Gallard said the meeting will be “open to anyone that would like to make a statement on the issue of Kindergarten matriculation at Penn Alexander.”

Gallard said that a microphone would be available for those who wanted to make statements. He encouraged people with similar statements to choose one or two representatives to speak on their behalf. The district has not made an official announcement of the meeting and there is no indication yet which district officials will attend.

The meeting follows the announcement Friday evening that the school would go to a lottery for kindergarten enrollment, ending the long-standing “first come, first served” policy that in recent years has lead to parents lining up well before registration started. This year the line began four days ahead of registration, which was supposed to open tomorrow at 9 a.m.

District officials announced the new policy some eight hours after the line had formed, angering many parents who said the change in policy limits their school options if their child is not selected in the lottery. In a letter distributed to parents in the line, Hite said the policy change will make the registration process “more efficient and less challenging for parents in the catchment area.”

The deadline to apply for the lottery is April 1 and it will be held in early April. The district has not announced a specific date.